When we speak about online interactions - social CRM, we often refer to "communities". These are nice (small) groups of people with some common interest. We see them collaborate and contribute in the best examples.
Let's examine a word here though - community. It speaks to a group or area within a larger area or group of people - the community in the north-western part of the state, or the French community. It doesn't denote large however - large area are called regions or cities and large groups are often categorized into whatever holds them together - race, ethnicity, religion, language and so on.
Online communities don't seem to adhere to the size rule though. Facebook - doubtless the largest online community has more than 800 million active members. That's 800,000,000 people. That's not a community by any stretch of the word. That's a nation, or more precisely its the world's 3rd largest nation.
A few notes on this...active to Facebook means people logging in at least once in 30 days. That correlates to 'alive' I'd suggest in a direct population comparison to nations. Growth-wise, Facebook was at 250Million users in July 2009. In July 2010, it passed 500,000 and in this past summer, it crested 750 Million. At this growth rate, how long will it be before it eclipses India, then China ?
About this time next year. They really ought to get a flag.
The next level down - the Google+, Twitters and MySpace are all growing fast too, with undoubtedly some of the same users. Dual-citizens as it were.
This platform - any 'platform' that's geographically based, or ethnicity based or anything else that gets this large, ought to be reasonably held accountable in ways we hold nations accountable. Whether we elect to acknowledge it or not, there's huge amounts of influence at play here.
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