Community Organizer: supporting the formation of network communities through spatial representation

We introduce Community Organizer, a system designed to support network communities by providing spatial representations of community members and communication exchanged among these members. This spatial representation reflects the closeness of interests and concerns among them. We conducted an experiment with two different versions of the software. One version offered meaningful spatial representation while the other version did not. Experiment results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed spatial representation. The subjects who used the software providing the spatial representations felt a greater sense of "community", enjoyed using the software more, and actively used it longer than subjects in the control condition.