Lifestyles in virtual communities: collaborative consumption and interaction

Abstract

China's rapid economic development comes along with an explosion of its Internet services and applications. Chinese Internet users are rediscovering consumer culture online. People turn to virtual communities and organize group consumption, exchange consumer knowledge and products, and seek business and interest partners there. This participant observer study examines how Chinese people experiment with and experience new modes of consumption through the channel of HXFOODS, a virtual community that focuses on consumption issues and activities in Chengdu, the second largest city in southwestern China. Overall, collective intelligence and creative online interactions are the foundation of HXFOODS.

Keywords:

• collaborative consumption
• virtual community
• communication
• Chinese
• Internet

Notes

^1. The owner of HXFOODS changed its English name to 52CH in December 2008.

^2. Since 2008, the community started to rearrange its forum structure regularly, creating new sections and merging old sections in the expectation of promoting the site traffic.