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Net Gain: Expanding markets through virtual communities

As virtual communities tip the balance of power in commercial transactions toward the customer, they will provide a powerful vehicle for vendors to deepen and broaden their relationships with the people who buy their goods and services. This is likely to affect the way businesses are run in physical space as well as in the virtual world. The primary effects will be felt by managers in the marketing and sales functions, who will find themselves wrestling with new rules for winning customer loyalty. In fact, "ownership" of customer relationships as a whole is likely to be thrown up for grabs by the emergence of virtual communities...