Online communities are becoming more and more popular these days thanks to social media and social shopping, and all kinds of ‘social’-something, even though we can definitely say they’ve been there for more than ten years or so, when for the first time online communities were created with videogames forums and support. Now, you can find almost any kind of forum, even though those related to online or PC world in some manner tend to prevail also because their users are more open to this kind of interaction.

On the other hand, it’s easy to find a lot of examples to prove that seniors, housewives, ship owners and so on also create very large and animated communities on the web. Every community, even if it’s a niche community (like it happens with gay chat, aquarium owners or hair care for black people forums), it’s related to a more or less specific identity, which means that its members manage to identify, recognize and distinguish themselves from the others by specific characteristics which are part of that identity.