Article at a glance:

The case for on-line communities

The concept of virtual communities may by now seem almost quaint, at least so far as commerce is concerned. Are they just another discredited artifact of the Internet bubble? Not so fast—research by McKinsey and Jupiter Media Metrix shows that community features such as chat rooms, bulletin boards, and product review pages create substantial value for both content and retail sites.

The take-away

As business-to-business and business-to-consumer World Wide Web sites struggle to stay alive, they should tap into the benefits of on-line communities to reap profits on the Internet.