Week 5 Business model

There are 9 main business model. The most interest business model for me is community.

what is community model:
The community model is a method of developing an online presence in which several individuals or groups are encouraged to join and participate in ongoing interaction designed around a common purpose. Web communities, or virtual communities, were not only a way for like-minded people to come together online, they also were an increasingly important element of business plans.

In business-to-business (B2B) relationships, the community model provides all community members with the ability to share and check electronic invoices, communicate and exchange funds on secured networks, and resolve problems quickly and openly. It use communities utilize electronic tools such as forums, chat rooms, e-mail lists, message boards, and other interactive Internet mechanisms.

Broadly, the community model comes in two basic varieties: those centered on relationships and those centered on tasks. The former typically are informal, grassroots-oriented communities that revolve around shared interests, ideas, topics, and goals. In these communities, the development of relationships is the primary goal. To maximize member involvement, community sites must offer maximum degrees of interactivity and personalization. For example, GeoCities offers space and tools for members to set up their own Web sites and establish virtual communities within the broader GeoCities community. Task-centered communities generally are more structured and impersonal. The relationships established or augmented online are a means to a mutual end, such as enhanced profits. More specifically, Web communities are established between business partners, between businesses and their customers, between different groups of customers, within companies, and between individuals and groups devoted to particular topics.

There are two examples of how company can benefit from community models:

One example of community model is intra-business Web comunications. It facilitates communication within and across departments and divisions, enhance coordination of strategies starting from the bottom up (rather than mandating them from the top down), and provide a forum for training programs, employee grievances, conflict resolution, and socializing. Furthermore, as Sloan Management Review pointed out, intra-firm online communities are an excellent way to encourage and foster voluntary employee participation and initiative, which are crucial concerns among employers.

Web communities also allow companies to use the Web to open up new channels for customer support and outreach, advertising, sales, ordering, distribution, and communication. In the field of customer service For instance, companies may encourage their users to access the Web to receive customer support in an online forum, in which they can seek advice from a company expert and interact with other customers. In this way, customers are encouraged to become part of a coherent community tied to the company, thereby creating added value and boosting customer loyalty. This built-in source of customer feedback can be extremely valuable, allowing companies to take proactive measures to improve products and customer service. It also enables firms to further personalize their sites and build customer profiles that can be utilized for later advertising and product development. In addition, companies can take advantage of such features to monitor their customers' needs and values, and modify their products and services accordingly. Finally, such arrangements can lighten the burden on company support staff, as customers are encouraged to get and offer help to other customers.

The opportunity of community model:

According to the video what's mine is yours , there is a big shift from hyper-consumption to collaborative consumption. Collaborative Consumption describes the rapid explosion in traditional sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping redefined through technology and peer communities.In this sense, community model is a big opportunities for online business today.

In order to be successful,a community must grow organically from the genuine needs and desires of the members themselves, and will gradually take shape over time as the community grows.

Example of community:

Twitter is a very good example of community model.It is an informal community to development relationships. It use communities utilize electronic tools such as chat rooms, message boards, and other interactive Internet mechanisms to chat with friends and share information to friends.