An online community is a group of people who gather together on a website for some reason. This reason can be any subject of interest common to the group, like occupation, hobby, passion, or location. Such online communities are very popular, and their popularity is growing as more and more people start surfing the Web. Think about it—everyone has something he or she is passionate about. And everybody likes meeting people who share their interests. Historically, such computer-based communities existed even before the Internet; using, for example, the modem-to-modem based bulletin board systems (BBS).

An essential part of being in a community is sharing and contributing (for example, commenting on a subject or pointing out topics of interest for the group). This way, the site visitors are no longer just looking at a website that is set in stone. They are changing its face by contributing content. Today, the ability to post comments on the websites we visit has become so common that we almost expect it to be there.

Static, brochure-like sites are becoming outdated. Communities rule the Web. This is good news for both site owners and site visitors. Sites are built to be visited and used by people, and at the same time, the people are taking part in building the sites they visit. Site owners can get immediate feedback on what their visitors like or dislike, and visitors get new and fresh content on every visit. It’s quite common these days that the community would not just influence a site owner’s decisions, but even make the decisions through polls or open discussions. So it’s not an exaggeration to say that more often than not, the success or the failure of a website is determined by the success or the failure in building an online community around the website. At the end of the day, a site is built to be used by the people, and the people have the final say if this site is worth something or not.