Nobuhiro Yamasaki

The active lurker: influence of an in-house online community on its outside environment

In this study, we focus on participants called lurkers, who do not post any messages in an online community such as interactive mailing lists and bulletin board systems. We propose a method of classifying participants including lurkers based on two criteria: what types of actions they take outside the online community, and whether or not the online community affects their thoughts. In addition, based on the results of interviews, we propose hypotheses regarding factors that characterize the categories of lurkers. We conduct a questionnaire survey of all participants in two in-house online communities to verify our method and test the hypotheses. There are a considerable number of lurkers who have a strong and wide influence outside the online community. We conclude that such lurkers cannot be neglected in an evaluation of online communities within a company. We also discuss the possibility of online community management by focusing on not only posters but also lurkers who are indirect contributors to increasing the influence of an online community on its outside environment.

The active lurker: a new viewpoint for evaluating the influence of an in-house online community

In this study, we focus on participants called lurkers, who do not post any messages in an online community such as interactive mailing lists and bulletin board systems. We propose a method of classifying participants including lurkers based on two criteria: what types of actions they take outside the online community, and whether or not the online community affects their thoughts. We conduct a questionnaire survey of all participants in two in-house online communities to verify our method. There are a considerable number of lurkers who have a strong and wide influence outside the online community. We conclude that such lurkers cannot be neglected in an evaluation of online communities within a company. These results could also lead us to discuss a possibility of an online community management by focusing on not only posters but also lurkers who are indirect contributors to increasing the influence of an online community on its outside environment.

Active Lurking: Enhancing the Value of In-House Online Communities Through the Related Practices Around the Online Communities

In this paper we examine the possibility of evaluating the value of an online community in a company by focusing on the practices around the online community, which we call active lurking. We divided the practices into two types: independent practices that are completed within only an informal context, and connecting practices that have relationships with the formal organizational structure. We conducted a questionnaire for 2,584 participants in two types of online communities in a large manufacturing company, and semi-structured interviews of 102 participants. We concluded that our practice-based evaluation is useful for managers or designers of an online community to help them to understand, evaluate, and manage its practical impacts on their business activities before or after building it.

The active lurker: influence of an in-house online community on its outside environment[1] (abstract only)

In this study, we focus on participants called lurkers, who do not post any messages in an online community such as interactive mailing lists and bulletin board systems. We propose a method of classifying participants including lurkers based on two criteria: what types of actions they take outside the online community, and whether or not the online community affects their thoughts. In addition, based on the results of interviews, we propose hypotheses regarding factors that characterize the categories of lurkers. We conduct a questionnaire survey of all participants in two in-house online communities to verify our method and test the hypotheses. There are a considerable number of lurkers who have a strong and wide influence outside the online community. We conclude that such lurkers cannot be neglected in an evaluation of online communities within a company. We also discuss the possibility of online community management by focusing on not only posters but also lurkers who are indirect contributors to increasing the influence of an online community on its outside environment.