The Lead User Influence in Online Communities - A Gaming Community Example 12+

📘 Diploma Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Business economics - General, grade: 1,3, Free University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: Due to the fast growing importance of the Internet one can observe a significant influence on all parts of the economy. The new Internet economy completely restructures given economic rules, not only because of the new opportunities, also because of the shifting power positions between customer and producer.One part of this new economy is the existence of online communities, these groups of users show a specific focus (mainly a common topic or interest) and with the increasing possibilities of communications, new social networks are created online. The online communities already have a large influence on the economic, because they offer various opportunities and many potential customers.This thesis focuses on a special aspect of online communities, the influence of lead users at the example of an online gaming community. Lead users often have needs that will be significant for the future market evolution, because the majority will also have them in the near future. At the example of the gaming market, lead users are often professional players with a serious game interest and a high motivation to further improve the games. Also the current status of other communities with a similar focus is evaluated.The approach in this thesis features a large scaled online questionnaire, which aims to identify the current needs of the players and ...