Resumen
The article focuses on audience-specific online community design. Community is no longer defined as a physical place, but as a set of relationships where people interact socially for mutual benefit. Online community is a social network that uses computer support as the basis of communication among members instead of face-to-face interaction. These virtual social networks may be used for empathetic support, but are more often used for common interest information sharing and problem solving. These networks are characteristically easy to enter and leave, non-exclusive and heterogenous membership. Commercial, nonprofit and grassroot organisations have opportunistically viewed these online communities as inexpensive mechanisms for developing customer and donor relationships with the ultimate goal of increasing revenues. In designing any type of online community one must recognize that online relationship building differs from face-to-face interactions in important ways and that these differences contribute to resistance to their use.