Virtual Community Studies: A Literature Review, Synthesis and Research Agenda

This paper presented a literature review, a classification schema, and a research agenda for the virtual community studies. Thirty-six academic papers on virtual communities, published from 1996 to 2004, were reviewed. A classification of these studies, based on research similarities and patterns, resulted in five areas being identified--social perspective, business perspective, development issues, application issues, and methodology issues. A proposed research agenda was offered according to these classifications.