Lotus Notes como herramienta de análisis de comunidades virtuales: el caso de la Comunidad Marca

Figura 1. Vista amb l'activitat dels usuaris de la comunitat virtual Marca i les dades relatives a la interacció amb la resta dels usuaris

In recent years online participation has become an essential object of study in research conducted into the new media. This participation of the individual citizen not only attracts the attention of researchers, but it is also a unique opportunity for many organizations to form virtual communities of users. This paper presents the development of a Lotus Notes application for analysing the Comunidad Marca, one of the most used sports forums in Spain, with more than 400,000 registered users. The program enables researchers to examine the behaviour of participants, including the interaction between users and web-user interaction, with direct and valuable implications for media companies.