How Web3 is Changing Online Communities

Modern online communities have taught us much about how important socializing is to us. People have integrated electronic communication into the organic nature of how we share information, learn, and live our everyday lives.

Academics have categorized a general structure for why online communities begin, how they develop, and what it takes to feed them to maturity. This article will take a look into the basic structures of online communities and discuss what the future of web 3.0 has in store for their evolution in the world.

Online communities and the developers themselves are entering a new era of what life online with blockchain and social media will look like. This is a consequence of multiple different technologies coming together to make up what is commonly known as web3 (formerly web2). Incredible new infrastructures like OpenAI's ChatGPT are an important part of this web 3.0 authority conversation that will likely converge with blockchains to impact social media, the modern web, and how you engage with the world wide web and platforms like Orion Protocol from your browser. Payments and cryptocurrency tokens also merge into this decentralization movement, along with big tech influence and reform of personal data use along with cloud servers.

What makes an online community?

A general definition of an online community is a group of individuals who interact with each other through a shared digital platform or space, typically with a common interest or goal. Online communities may be focused on a particular topic, hobby, or cause and can provide a sense of belonging and support for their members.

Some online communities are moderated by a group of free volunteers or paid staff, while others operate on a more decentralized basis among a decentralized network of peer access servers and organizations.

Signs of an online community

Here are some of the key aspects included in an online community:

Content

Content can mean any information resources or services shared amongst community members in the form of user-generated content, articles, videos, nfts, art, etc.

Forums or newsgroups and email

These represent means of communication that could be conveyed in a delayed fashion.

Chat and instant messaging

As opposed to delayed channels, a chat and instant messaging app/s allow for instant communication.

Netiquette (internet etiquette)

Netiquette refers to, for example, a set of social norms that are established as an online community develops and enable a group understanding. These will vary from one community to the next.

Four types of online community

What frameworks exist to streamline how we think about the variety of online communities? In an article from the Harvard Business Review entitled, The Real Value of On-Line Communities, the authors outline four basic types of online communities.

Communities of transaction

These are communities where the importance of buying and selling products in an online social manner is emphasized across the network. It is typically required that members must interact in order to complete transactions.

Communities of interest

Key features of these communities are to involve the online interaction of people with specific knowledge on a certain topic.

Communities of fantasy

Communities of fantasy encourage people to participate in online forms of an alternate reality, like games and apps where individuals are represented by avatars.

Communities of relationship

These communities often appear in the form of dating services. They allow people to communicate with others in ways that a user can either reveal their identity or preserve their control of privacy to a degree.

The lifecycle of community members

Like any other organization, online communities go through a process of growth. For any individual or company fostering a community, understanding the "customer journey" is critical to growing their community.

To enlighten us on the universal stages of the customer journey, we will trust the success and experience of Amy Jo Kim, author of Game Thinking: Innovate smarter and drive deep engagement with design techniques from hit games.

Peripheral (i.e., lurker)

Peripheral participants, known as “lurkers,” are characterized as outsiders who are in the investigative stage of their involvement. Their participation is referred to as being unstructured.

Inbound (i.e., novice)

The next stage for a lurker would be to become an inbound participant or novice. These are newcomers who demonstrate an investment in the community and are on their way to full participation.

Insider (i.e., regular)

Insiders are members committed to ongoing participation in the community

Boundary (i.e., leader)

Boundary participants are leaders in the community. Rather than being regular participants, leaders step in to facilitate interactions. Their input serves the purpose of encouraging and sustaining participation from the rest of the community.

Outbound (i.e., elder)

These are members who are eclipsing their participation in the community. They may be motivated by a change in the community, outside influence, or personal choice to leave the community.

Learning leads to customer success.

Newcomers are critical to ensuring a sustained presence of elder members in the community. A great online community minimizes barriers that make it difficult for newcomers to learn how to participate - a fact that stands for each stage of the customer journey.

How web3 is changing the game

Web3 applications, also known as decentralized apps or DApps, are applications that are built on top of decentralized networks or blockchain technology. These networks operate in a distributed manner, with no single point of failure. They allow users to interact with each other and with data and content in a more secure and transparent way for payments with blockchain tokens or communication in general.

Within the web3 movement, Orion Protocol and its liquidity aggregator, which combines individual crypto exchanges, both centralized and decentralized, enable a user to trade with the security of their own wallet to purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other altcoins. This creates the value of having all of those exchanges available in the same place instantly through DeFi without needing to share personal data through their browser or create an account to trade. Trading access to web 3.0 becomes ultra simplified through Orion.

Orion Protocol blends seamlessly with web3 applications and online company projects with Orion Swap Widget, enabling any website to integrate Orion's deep blockchain trading swap aggregator. This provides access for companies wanting to provide their token directly to users within the crypto world without needing to worry about the storage of their tokens on a centralized exchange or network. Just connect your own personal wallet and trade.

The semantic web

The semantic web is a version of the internet that is focused on making it easier for machines to understand and process the vast amount of data and content that is available online. It uses standardized protocols and technologies to represent data in a more structured and meaningful way, allowing web browsers and other software to better understand the context and meaning of the information they encounter.

OpenAI's ChatGPT is a recent incredible glimpse and idea into what the semantic web might be like. Instead of a relatively static interface like Google Search, natural language processing (NLP) in the semantic web can make surfing the internet and using the cloud a more intuitive experience for any peer.

Web browsers and organizations, such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari, are software programs that allow users to access the internet as most know it today. Today, web browsers are adapting to be used as platforms for distributed applications, allowing users to interact with decentralized networks and apps similar to how they always have.

The failings of web 2.0

Social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, have become a central part of modern online communities and have helped to bring people together and facilitate the exchange of ideas and information. However, they have also faced criticism for their centralization and how they handle and control user data, storage, security, and privacy.

Decentralized networks and decentralized apps in the digital web3 space are emerging as an alternative to traditional centralized platforms and applications for companies and users. They operate on a distributed basis, with no single point of control, and offer users more control over their data and interactions within applications. These technologies are expected to play a significant role in the evolution of the internet and online communities, whether for gaming, video use, or any other relevant activity within a user's web browser session. Applications within web3 are here to stay.

Adapting to the future of online community

Essentially, the concept of processing massive amounts of data by emerging AI applications and the permissionless transactions and operations of blockchain technology is leading to an internet that is increasingly self-sufficient. These technologies are converging together to eliminate friction on the web for users quickly and could spark a wave of fresh new innovations to come for web 3.0 for apps and server users, which is based on decentralization.

The emerging result is web3, which promises a multiplicative impact on the depth and variety of creative expression (content) and ease of engagement on the internet. For online communities, it means a whole new level of interaction - a movement Orion Protocol is proud to be a part of with an exceptional industry-first liquidity aggregator protocol.