(plus related clusters of activity)

To be a community, a social aggregation of people must have at least one primary activity, a common and shared focus of interest among members. It can be an established hobby, such as skiing or playing computer games, but also more varied activities such as volunteering in homes for elderly seniors. Considering especially computer-supported gaming, the primary activity can be a quite specific interest, such as playing one particular (type of) game, or even a subactivity in the game, such as teasing collectively those beginners, who seem to be a bit lost in the game. If the primary activity can be named, it often gives the name for the whole community. Visiting Habbo Hotel can both be analysed as one primary activity, or as clusters of several primary activities. Both perspectives are equally valid, but they highlight different relations among all the users.

Examples from Habbo and GeoCaching

In a net-based community you need to have a common activity to everybody. In the case of Habbo Hotel it is to meet friends in an online environment.

In the Geocaching the primary activity is to find and hide items in an outdoor context and communicate about it via Internet.