41 VIRTUAL CUSTOMER COMMUNITIES: AN INNOVATIVE CASE FROM THE MEDIA INDUSTRY

摘要

Online communication technologies enhance the ability of firms to engage in on-going dialogue with their customers and leverage valuable knowledge. However, there is little formal research on virtual customer communities. The aim of this paper is to offer new insights of the different customer roles and business benefits of virtual customer community-based collaboration in product development. We present a case study from the media industry, and demonstrate how the roles and interactions have been integrated into a novel form of a virtual customer community, supporting continuous product development with a large base of paying customers.