Udderly Fantastic: A Social Website for the Australian Dairy Industry

The focus of this paper is a social web site, Udderly Fantastic, that has been developed and implemented for the Australian dairy farming industry with the overarching goal of providing ‘a place for dairy-minded people to creatively celebrate the business.’ The aim of the study is to examine how an industry-wide social web site contributes to the creation of a sense of community amongst its members. The findings show that a vibrant community has developed with evidence of the accumulation of social capital benefiting the members. They also include the identification of the benefits of the social community to both members and other stakeholders. Thus the study contributes to a greater understanding of the value of social web sites (SWS) in an industry setting. Implications for practice and research are briefly discussed and further research paths are identified.