OracleCommunity.net a Great Example of a Customer-run Community, Here is Why
The Wall Street Journal published an article titled Creating a Successful Online Brand Community – The Fans Know Best. The authors list “four things companies can do to turn a tired and rigid brand community into a powerful market-research lab, early-warning system and customer-loyalty builder, all rolled into one”.
I was happy to see that OracleCommunity.net was mentioned in the WSJ article as an example of giving visitors multiple ways of interacting:
Lots of company-run communities are good at putting visitors in touch with a company representative, or at helping them find solutions to problems. But many of these sites don’t let visitors talk to each other. Where is the community in that? … Most fan-run communities, by contrast, encourage a variety of social interactions… <br/><br/>At Oraclecommunity.net, a site for people interested in Oracle Corp.’s database and software products, members share personal stories, pictures, videos and birthdays. They can create blogs on the site, form groups around themes and build networks of designated friends. Members can also schedule meetings and events both online and in person.
The article is a good read. By the way, make sure you join the 6,000+ OracleCommunity.net members, in case you have not done so already.
Oracle Community Membership Statistics
Here are some interesting statistics about the members of OracleCommunity.net:
- Total number of members as of February 23, 2009: 4,505 members
- Percentage of females: 13.04 %
- Percentage of males: 86.96 %
- Average member age: 32 years
- Top five countries where members come from:
- India 30.38 %
- United States 26.06 %
- Pakistan 5.67 %
- United Kingdom 3.11 %
- Egypt 3%
- Webmail war among Gmail, Yahoo mail and Hotmail:
- Gmail: 51.71 %
- Yahoo: 34.65 %
- Hotmail: 13.64 %
I calculated the above statistics by first exporting the list of members from OracleCommunity.net as a CSV file. I then used Oracle SQL developer to import the data in the CSV file into a new table in my local Oracle XE database.
I issued the following queries. The function RATIO_TO_REPORT came in handy.
Total count:
SELECT COUNT ( * ) total_member_count FROM "oc"
TOTAL_MEMBER_COUNT
----------------------
4505
1 rows selected
Gender:
SELECT "Gender",
COUNT ( * ) member_count,
ROUND (ratio_to_report (COUNT ( * )) OVER () * 100, 2)
member_percent
FROM "oc"
WHERE "Gender" IS NOT NULL -- Not all members provide this info
GROUP BY "Gender"
Gender MEMBER_COUNT MEMBER_PERCENT
------ ---------------------- ----------------------
Female 442 13.04
Male 2947 86.96
2 rows selected
Age:
WITH ma AS (SELECT TO_NUMBER ("Age") age
FROM "oc"
WHERE "Age" IS NOT NULL -- Not all members provide this info
AND TO_NUMBER ("Age") BETWEEN 18 AND 65)
SELECT TRUNC (AVG (age)) average,
TRUNC (STDDEV (age)) dev,
TRUNC (VARIANCE (age)) var
FROM ma
AVERAGE DEV VAR
---------------------- ---------------------- ----------------------
32 7 56
1 rows selected
Country:
SELECT "Country",
COUNT ( * ) member_count,
ROUND (ratio_to_report (COUNT ( * )) OVER () * 100, 2)
member_percent
FROM "oc"
WHERE "Country" IS NOT NULL -- Not all members provide this info
GROUP BY "Country"
ORDER BY 2 DESC
Country MEMBER_COUNT MEMBER_PERCENT
------------------------------------------ ---------------------- ----------------------
India 1034 30.38
United States 887 26.06
Pakistan 193 5.67
United Kingdom 106 3.11
Egypt 102 3
Netherlands 72 2.12
Turkey 67 1.97
Indonesia 62 1.82
Canada 54 1.59
Australia 53 1.56
Saudi Arabia 49 1.44
United Arab Emirates 38 1.12
Singapore 36 1.06
Germany 33 0.97
Brazil 32 0.94
Bangladesh 30 0.88
Israel 28 0.82
Italy 24 0.71
Kuwait 23 0.68
Mexico 22 0.65
China, mainland 21 0.62
France 20 0.59
Spain 18 0.53
Malaysia 18 0.53
Ireland 15 0.44
Iran 15 0.44
Argentina 15 0.44
Thailand 14 0.41
South Africa 13 0.38
Switzerland 12 0.35
Romania 12 0.35
Russian Federation 12 0.35
Portugal 11 0.32
Norway 11 0.32
Peru 11 0.32
Belgium 10 0.29
Ukraine 9 0.26
Philippines 9 0.26
Slovenia 9 0.26
Sweden 8 0.24
Chile 8 0.24
Greece 8 0.24
Czech Republic 8 0.24
Nigeria 7 0.21
Japan 7 0.21
Qatar 6 0.18
Austria 6 0.18
Ecuador 5 0.15
Vietnam 5 0.15
Hong Kong 5 0.15
Poland 5 0.15
Jordan 5 0.15
Taiwan 5 0.15
Kenya 4 0.12
Denmark 4 0.12
Slovakia 4 0.12
Algeria 4 0.12
Oman 4 0.12
Botswana 4 0.12
Iceland 4 0.12
New Zealand 4 0.12
Serbia and Montenegro 4 0.12
Hungary 4 0.12
Bulgaria 4 0.12
Yemen 4 0.12
United States Minor Outlying Islands 4 0.12
Morocco 4 0.12
Panama 3 0.09
Colombia 3 0.09
Sri Lanka 3 0.09
Korea, Republic of 3 0.09
Mauritius 3 0.09
Nepal 3 0.09
Ghana 3 0.09
Palestinian Territory, Occupied 3 0.09
European Union 2 0.06
Iraq 2 0.06
Azerbaijan 2 0.06
Georgia 2 0.06
Madagascar 2 0.06
Costa Rica 2 0.06
Malta 2 0.06
Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of 2 0.06
Moldova, Republic of 1 0.03
Venezuela 1 0.03
Lithuania 1 0.03
Papua New Guinea 1 0.03
Croatia 1 0.03
Benin 1 0.03
Cyprus 1 0.03
Trinidad and Tobago 1 0.03
Dominican Republic 1 0.03
Brunei Darussalam 1 0.03
Lebanon 1 0.03
Sudan 1 0.03
Mozambique 1 0.03
Senegal 1 0.03
Finland 1 0.03
Netherlands Antilles 1 0.03
Puerto Rico 1 0.03
Congo, The Democratic Republic Of The 1 0.03
Cayman Islands 1 0.03
Uganda 1 0.03
103 rows selected
Webmail:
SELECT gmail,
ROUND (gmail / (gmail + hotmail + yahoo) * 100, 2) gmail_pct,
hotmail,
ROUND (hotmail / (gmail + hotmail + yahoo) * 100, 2) hotmail_pct,
yahoo,
ROUND (yahoo / (gmail + hotmail + yahoo) * 100, 2) yahoo_pct
FROM (SELECT SUM(CASE
WHEN INSTR ("Email", 'gmail') > 0 THEN 1
ELSE 0
END)
gmail,
SUM(CASE
WHEN INSTR ("Email", 'hotmail') > 0 THEN 1
ELSE 0
END)
hotmail,
SUM(CASE
WHEN INSTR ("Email", 'yahoo') > 0 THEN 1
ELSE 0
END)
yahoo
FROM "oc"
WHERE "Email" IS NOT NULL)
GMAIL GMAIL_PCT HOTMAIL HOTMAIL_PCT YAHOO YAHOO_PCT
------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------ ------------
1600 51.71 422 13.64 1072 34.65
1 rows selected
Oracle Community Update
The social network for Oracle people OracleCommunity.net was launched on January 31, 2008. Since then, it has had a tremendous growth. We went from 1 to 2,445+ members in 8 months. Existing features have been enhanced and new features have been added. Features like chat, events and the iPhone version did not even exist when the network was created.
Here is a summary of features currently available to all OracleCommunity.net members:
Member Profiles: Each member has a fully customizable profile with their photo, basic information and everything they’ve contributed to the community.
Event Listings: Schedule events, invite community members, and keep track of who’s attending.
Interest Groups: Create groups inside the community around hobbies, interests, affinities, geographical locations and more.
Real-time Activity Stream: Keep up with the members of the community. Find out what members are saying, how they’re interacting and what they’re sharing.
Discussion Forum: Start a discussion on any topic and watch other members respond with posts, photos and attachments.
Blogs: Create your own blog hosted on OracleCommunity.net and potentially have all community members as your blog readers.
Custom Video Players: Upload original footage or share videos from popular video services like YouTube, Google Video and Vimeo.
Photos & Slideshows: Post photos and organize them into albums. You can show off your photos in galleries or slideshows.
Message Center: Send/receive messages and review pending friend requests.
Chat: Chat with other members of the community in real time.
iPhone interface: Sleek, compact, and easy to navigate, this new iPhone/iPod touch version will enable you to take your network with you wherever you go.
New features are constantly being added. Wait for a big one next month. 
Here is a screenshot of OracleCommunity.net on the iPhone:
Yet Another Oracle Social Network in the Works
In addition to Oracle Mix, Oracle Wiki and Oracle Community, OAUG will be launching yet another Oracle related social network called the Knowledge Factory.
The Knowledge Factory will provide a platform for users to exchange ideas, experiences, and expertise within the Oracle Applications member community. It will feature user profiles with pictures and biographies, blogs, forums and wiki. Sounds familiar?
Sources:
7 Comments | Filed in Oracle | Tags: oaug, oraclecommunity, socialnetwork, wikiOracleCommunity.net the Social Network for Oracle People
I pre-launched OracleCommunity.net as a private, invite only social network this morning. If you follow me on Twitter, you probably got the scoop first.
Now, I’m officially launching OracleCommunity.net and making it public and available to everyone in the Oracle community. If you are an Oracle developer, DBA, customer, employee, or just interested in Oracle databases, Oracle applications and related technologies, feel free to join. There is no invite needed, however, you can always invite your friends once you become a member.
As a member, you’ll meet new people, make new friends, help and get help from fellow community members, socialize, stay up to date with the latest happenings in the Oracle community and even start your own blog.
Here are some of the features available to you as an OracleCommunity.net member, in no specific order:
- Create your own blog.
- Manage blog posts and moderate comments.
- Choose the option to publish blog posts in the future.
- Add photos, files, and widgets to blog posts.
- Upload photos and videos from a computer or mobile phone.
- Embed videos from any video service on the web.
- Add photo and video comments, ratings, tags, locations, favorites, and share via email.
- Start and tag a discussion.
- Create public or private groups.
- Add group descriptions, images, discussions, and members.
- Customize the appearance of your profile page.
- Add widgets to your profile page.
- See which members of the community are online now.
- Embed Photo slideshows, video players, and OracleCommunity badges anywhere on the Internet.
- Set different privacy settings for every photo, video, group, or blog post.
- RSS feeds are enabled for all features, such as members, discussions, photos, videos, and blog posts.
- And much more…
Even though OracleCommunity.net is not affiliated with Oracle, I believe that it is a great addition to Oracle Mix and the Oracle Wiki.
Let’s make OracleCommunity.net grow and be a great place to hang out, have fun and learn a few things.
