I'm both passionate about communities (having created the community advocate group in Facebook, as well as held the community manager role at HDS) and am now doing research on this topic. I'm on a quest to find an accurate, reliable, and timeless definition of the term online community.

I vetted this definition with my Twitter network, received nearly 50 responses this morning. I've boiled down a definition to the following:

Communities are bodies of people loosely joined together by a common interest - Shel Holtz

An online community is: Where a group of people with similar goals or interests connect and exchange information using web tools. Also good reads are other ways to define community, (quoting Jake McKee). Amy Jo KI'm has a book and online resources that are very helpful.

Your feedback wanted (as always) how do you define community? Please note this needs to be succint, yet comprehensI've and stand the test of time.

Update: I embedded all the responses I received on twitter about the community definition. I think its appropriate to note that I'm working with the community to define the term.

I just saw Shel defined this from his blog as Communities are bodies of people loosely joined together by a common interest. Thats the most succint one so far, Ill add to it to suit the requirement of an online community: Communities are bodies of people loosely joined together by a common interest that exchange information using web tools.

Link to post:

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