While the interest in Web 2.0 in the last few years seems to have helped raise awareness of the role that users of a website should play in its success, it does not seem to have led to a better understanding of online communities in general. Virtual (online) communities have been around in various forms for many years, and in recent years they have taken on quite a variety of forms.
An understanding of user-to-user interactions and network effects among other things are important aspects of Web 2.0 movements. However, these do not constitute true online communities in and of itself. Social networkings sites also do not necessarily imply the formation of an online community.
Hand in hand with the benefits and confusion inherent within discussion of Web 2.0 seems to be a growing misunderstanding of a terms like online community, virtual community, and even community itself. Sometimes, or perhaps often, discussion about virtual communities is too imprecise. In such cases, usually technology is set as a high point of discussion and simple user-to-user interaction is treated as community. In reality, strong, vibrant virtual communities generally takes a long time to develop, and the technology involved does not play as significant a role as it sometimes attributed to the development of online communities.
It may be best to try to visualize these concepts. The development of online communities in a Web 2.0 world can be thought of in terms of levels. At the base and lowest level, one finds products and sites geared towards user-geneated content and user participation in a site, something that is a key component of building a Web 2.0 site. At the highest level, one finds fully developed online communities which are separate entities unto themselves. Perhaps the easiest parallel to understanding this would be to think of the way in which corporations are recognized as their own legal entity, fully separate from the individual owners. For a visual representation, see an Illustration of the Levels of Online Communities in a Web 2.0 World.
An illustration of my view of levels of online community. I see relevance to thinking in these terms in a "Web 2.0 World" that doesn't always distinguish between the types of user interaction with sites and with other people.
