Subworlds are typically born as a result of segmentation. A social world, or, a subworld becomes so large and diversified that, for example, members have such distant interests that their activities separate them so efficiently from others that they can be thought as another subworld. Or, some part of the subworld will distinguish itself from others because it wants to do things differently in the future. Another group of members may feel that the original way of doing the main activity in the subworld is lost and will return to the good old way (see also below).

Aligned with these basic phenomena of social life, new subworlds will be born around new activities (people moving to NeverWinter Nights’ chat-area instead of actually playing the game), new sites (A Habbo Hotel’s fansite may split into two when the founders feel that there are too much newbies and thus they will build another one), new technologies (from sending messages with the Habbo Console to using MSN Messenger), and even organizations (from Geocaching.com to other similar organization’s outdoor treasure hunt game: like GeoDashing and CacheAcrossAmerica). One marker of segmenting are those different discourses, different ways of talking that are conducted in separated segments. They are usually developed during the separation processes and got only strengthened when the segmentation has been continued for a while.

Social design strategy

You should be aware that your nice and coherent community will, in some day, scatter in parts. Don't worry, its natural, they are only segmenting themselves into new order - that will be dispersed again... They may be soon-to-be mothers meeting in Habbo, or another online gamers using Habbo only as their chat.