Cameron Lawrence

Predicting Internet-based Online Community Size and Time to Peak Membership Using the Bass Model of New Product Growth

The objective of this paper is to use a well-established theory of new product diffusion and show how it can be applied to cyber communities to forecast how many people will join the community, and how long it will take to attain peak membership. We use three online communities to illustrate the application of the theory, and show how the theory can be used to measure community size and time to peak membership for these communities. We show that the model can be used to delineate the two different types of influence (internal and external) that impact joining the communities. The paper is appropriate for researchers wishing to better understand the mechanics underlying online community growth, and for administrators of such communities who want to forecast the important aspects of size and peak adoption time.