Virtual communities provide an attractive place for organizations to mine information regarding customer perception, needs, and demographics, and to sell and advertise in. Decisions regarding the use of virtual communities for e-commerce would be better if predicated on some knowledge of the individuals in the community. The effectiveness of such decisions, however, is hindered by the difference between active posters who post messages on a regular basis and silent lurkers who never or very infrequently post messages. This paper presents a study of the differences between posters and lurkers with regard to demographics, motivations to use the community, trust in others, and time spent in the community from a survey of 519 virtual community users. Implications for companies thinking of taking advantage of virtual communities are discussed based on these findings.
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