Automated Discovery of Emerging Online Communities Among Blog Readers: A Case Study of a Canadian Real Estate Blog

Introduction According to the latest Technorati’s report (http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-theblogosphere), more than 184 million people worldwide have started a web blog, and collectively they attracted at least 346 million blog readers. Due to their popularities, web blogs have been the focus of many recent Internet studies. Aside from being a great publishing platform, many of these studies confirmed the fact that modern blogs with commenting-capabilities are also great places for meeting like-minded individuals and forming new social relationships (e.g., Ali-Hasan & Adamic, 2007; Dennen & Pashnyak, 2008). As a result, it is not surprising that there is also a growing interest in discovering and characterizing online communities that tend to naturally form around some web blogs. This interest is shared not only among Internet researchers studying online communities, but also among everyday Internet users seeking to join interesting conversations online. However, not all blogs are capable of fostering and sustaining a community of loyal readers. Why is that?