Research Article
User Loyalty and Online Communities: Why Members of Online Communities are not Faithful
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/ICST.INTETAIN2008.2481, author={Petter Bae Brandtz\c{c}g and Jan Heim}, title={User Loyalty and Online Communities: Why Members of Online Communities are not Faithful}, proceedings={2nd International Conference on INtelligent TEchnologies for interactive enterTAINment}, publisher={ICST}, proceedings_a={INTETAIN}, year={2010}, month={5}, keywords={Online communities User loyalty Participation Design Trust Usability Social interaction.}, doi={10.4108/ICST.INTETAIN2008.2481} }- Petter Bae Brandtzæg
Jan Heim
Year: 2010
User Loyalty and Online Communities: Why Members of Online Communities are not Faithful
INTETAIN
ICST
DOI: 10.4108/ICST.INTETAIN2008.2481
Abstract
Online communities are getting increasingly important for several different user groups; at the same time, community members seem to lack loyalty, as they often change from one community to another or use their community less over time. To survive and thrive, online communities must meet members’ needs. By using qualitative data are from an extensive online survey of online community users and a representative sample of Internet users, 200 responses to an open question regarding community-loyalty was analyzed. Results show that there are 9 main reasons why community-users decrease in their participation over time or, in simple terms, stop using their online community: 1) Lack of interesting people/friends attending, 2) Low quality content, 3) Low usability, 4) Harassment and bullying 5) Time-consuming/isolating, 6) Low trust, 7) Over-commercialized, 8) Dissatisfaction with moderators and 9) Unspecified boring. The results, design implications and future research are discussed.
