Bakgrund och problem: Online communities är en färsk bransch där flerauppmärksammade förvärv ägt rum under det senaste året. Värderingen av nya företag påosäkra marknader kan ofta vara svår, i och med osäkerhet vad gäller hur den framtidapotentialen skall bedömas. Uppsatsens frågeställning går ut på att redogöra för hur detta kanske.Syfte: Uppsatsens explorativa syfte går ut på att inhämta så mycket kunskap och informationom ämnet som möjligt, och därigenom sträva efter att kartlägga och synliggöra den potentialoch de risker som finns inom branschen online communities.Avgränsningar: Online communities är en plats där människor träffas virtuellt för attinteragera med varandra. Vi har valt att analysera sociala, relationsfrämjande, onlinecommunities som primärt är riktade mot ungdomar i Norden vars syfte är att utgöra enträffpunkt för allmänt socialt umgänge.Metod: Uppsatsen har ett explorativt undersökningsförfarande, där ett kvalitativttillvägagångssätt begagnats för att inhämta primärdata i form utav intervjuer med analytiker,experter och uppköpare.Analys och slutsatser: Intellektuellt kapital är grunden till värdeskapandet i en onlinecommunity. Att vårda relationer till medlemmarna är av avgörande vikt för framgång.

Vobbla Racing is a racing team who has an online sales department that is in need of an upgrade to be more efficient and easier to use. Before this study their present homepage was anything but structured. The products were sorted in an illogical order which made it difficult for the customer to find a wanted product. The customer had to summarize the products, transport sums and other costs. The order had to be e-mailed or phoned in to Vobbla Racing Produkter.

The number of products offered by retailers has increased immensely during the last two decades, which has resulted in an increase of naming decisions having to be made. The importance of product names has become more significant for retailers offering their products online, as these are more visible to the customer in comparison to products offered offline. Consequently, it is of great value for retailers to gain knowledge about how a product name affects the customers' perception of the product. The purpose of this study is to examine whether product names affect customers perception of the relevant products in the online environment. This has been illustrated by applying the following theories to the relevant product names; meaningful and meaningless brand names as well as concrete and abstract words.

In the fragmented network economy of toady remote work for creative designers becomes mor eand more prevalent. This is good for a number of reasons. Mainly, creative designers can find work inside and outside of their region irrespective of where they choose to live. However, competing for jobs in a global market is harder, and the online presence of the creatives becomes their main shopping window. We have conducted a study, interviewing digital creatives in Västerbotten.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka grupp- och kommunikationsprocesser i en online community där den gemensamma nämnaren mellan medlemmarna var intresset för spelet World of Warcraft. Undersökningen utfördes med hjälp av en egenkonstruerad enkät samt observationer vars syfte var att undersöka deltagarnas grupptillhörighet, vänskap, konflikthantering och kommunikation online, samt deras beteenden gentemot varandra. Syftet var även att undersöka om sociala anpassningsstrategier, standardroller och in-och utomgruppsfavoritism var applicerbara på en virtuell grupp. Undersökningsresultaten pekar på att många av de teorier gällande grupptillhörighet och vänskap även är applicerbara på grupper formade online samt att kommunikationshjälpmedel såsom smileys underlättar konversationer i skriven form. Resultaten pekar även på att de sociala anpassningsstrategierna och standardrollerna är applicerbara på en virtuell grupp, dock anses urvalet för litet och observationstiden för kort för att med säkerhet säga att dessa återfinns.

This master thesis examines online reading groups with swedish participants. The aim is, by way of introduction, to investigate what kind of online reading groups that exist and how they work. The overall question of the thesis is: how do a conversation about books on the Internet look like? The theory used is Grounded Theory and this is a methodology which has influenced the hole structure of the study. Grounded Theory apply that issues and hypothesis must be created from the collected material, and the author collected for this reason material in the form of survey answers, email-conversations, blogmaterial and articles to draw up exact issues based on this material.The material was sorted into four different categories; social reading, reading fellowship, virtual freedom and anonymity and the issues were formulated according to this categories.

Online dating and ?People nearby applications? (PNA) has become more popular in today?s society. With PNA you can easily find people who are nearby you that you can socialize with and maybe even meet. In this paper we study the mobile application Badoo and explore how it is used for dating in clubs in Stockholm through observations that we participated in. We also had a group interview with five Badoo users about their usage of the application.

Today it is not unusual to use a secondary screen to accompany a primary screen. The possibility to integrate these two in the form of an application for the secondary screen have long been possible but have not been developed to full potential. This thesis aims to study the use of the extra information and functions this type of application would make possible and how this type of application could be used.For this study a prototype-application including a real time newsfeed and a static menu for a specific episode of a Tv-series was created based on the information collected in an online survey. The application was tested on a number of people who got to evaluate the experience in short interviews and were given the possibility to recommend changes in the application.The result after the study showed the people where torn about what kind of information would best fit the application but showed over all that a dynamic newsfeed with information continuously updated with the episode where most appreciated. The problem with the difference in interest around the categories would be solved first and foremost by the application being configurable so that every single user has the possibility to choose which kind of information to be updated in the newsfeed.

Internet och sociala medier har möjliggjort möten och kommunikation mellan människor på ett helt nytt sätt än tidigare. Dock är cybervärlden samtidigt en otrygg och problematisk plats. Brott förekommer både offline och online. Uppsatsen grundar sig i denna problematik och syftar till att få en inblick i problematiken som finns rörande ungdomar och nätbrott utifrån ungdomarnas synvinkel. Mer specifikt gäller det kränkningar, olaga hot och sexualbrott.

Immersion is a construct that measures how deeply engrossed a user is with any mediated situation. In the field of game design, immersion is a significant aspect of what makes a game enticing, and as such it is of pivotal importance to create and maintain it to keep the player's mind off the real world while inside the confines of a game framework. According to the GameFlow theory, it is one of seven key tenets of evaluating and implementing a successful game design. Yet, certain multiplayer online games are designed in a fashion that in some cases seem to break immersion, where the player is frequently put out of action, sometimes for minutes on end. In this study, using online questionnaires, we discover that players, despite claims otherwise, seem to be in several ways affected negatively by this breaking of immersion.

Immersion is a construct that measures how deeply engrossed a user is with any mediated situation. In the field of game design, immersion is a significant aspect of what makes a game enticing, and as such it is of pivotal importance to create and maintain it to keep the player's mind off the real world while inside the confines of a game framework. According to the GameFlow theory, it is one of seven key tenets of evaluating and implementing a successful game design. Yet, certain multiplayer online games are designed in a fashion that in some cases seem to break immersion, where the player is frequently put out of action, sometimes for minutes on end. In this study, using online questionnaires, we discover that players, despite claims otherwise, seem to be in several ways affected negatively by this breaking of immersion.

Internet har blivit na?stintill oumba?rligt i dagens va?rld. Fra?n online-spel till e-handel och fra?n kommunikationskanaler till ett informativt na?t, a?r Internet fo?rmodligen en av de mest framtra?ngande och vitt spridda uppfinningarna av va?r tid. Medan sa?kerheten kring anva?ndandet av Internet har diskuterats vilt sa? har anva?ndbarheten av Internet i olika omra?den inte utforskats till samma grad.

AbstractIT can facilitate communication among individuals and connect people across geographical distances. On the contrary, citizens of the society who do not use communication technologies to some extent might feel excluded from the information society. As elderly citizens are already in a vulnerable position for the digital divide, communication technology becomes an important tool for interacting with friends and family. The social situation of elderly, 60 years of age and older, is a topic of current interest since they are the fastest growing age group in the world today. Further, social interaction becomes more important among elderly since it has a positive effect on well- being.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine the virtual reference service Ask the Library [Bibblan svarar] from a postmodern perspective. Ask the Library is a Swedish online reference service that is run by the country?s public libraries. The postmodern theories of Jean-François Lyotard are used to study how information is managed and transmitted within the service.

The tourism industry in Sweden has expanded in recent years and the increasing industry has meant that customers are in need of a reseller for their trips abroad. Today there are three types of retailers available. These are : Traditional travel agencies , tour operators and online travel agencies.Online Travel agencies are the most modern online option for customers. Their existence has made it easier for the customer and reservation can be made anytime and anywhere. The competition has intensified between the three retailers and the traditional alternatives must find new ways to survive.