【正文】 ave motivated people to congregate in a virtual space to share personal interests. Virtual worlds provide a new level of graphical richness to virtual munities while also supporting plex market activities. The early years of the Inter emphasized bringing together researchers but once many universities were connected, munities based on personal interests developed. These often involved hobbies and entertainment (Rheingold, 1993). In these early days the most mon technologies were and listservs that later evolved into bulletin boards and MUDs where people began to create fantasy worlds (Castronova, 2021). These were forerunners of today’s graphical virtual worlds. Research about online munities has evolved. Scholars have documented the effectiveness and use of virtual munities in society to foster, for example, civic behavior (Blanchard and Horan, 1998) and social resistance movements (De, 2021). Virtual munities can also be used to create, gather, anize, and manage knowledge ( [Bruynseels and Vos, 2021], [Daniel et al., 2021], [Jansen et al., 2021] and [Schubert and Koch, 2021]). They have also been used as a management tool in anizations. Marketing departments have found that people’s fascination with the product or service can help a pany develop relationships with customers to generate loyalty ( [Kardaras and Karakostas, 2021] and [Schubert and Koch, 2021]). These munities often result in criticism of panies, however (Lueg, 2021). Virtual munities can be classified according to types of activities and membership. For example Hagel and Armstrong (1996) identified four categories of online munities: munities of transactions, munities of interest, munities of fantasy, and 浙江工業(yè)大學之江學院畢業(yè)設計（論文） 外文翻譯 9 munities of relationship. Similarly Klang and Olsson (1999) divide them into munity works, professional societies, personal societies and the “third place,” where people go to meet with new and old friends. Klang and Olsson (1999) identify four types of munities: the forum, the shop, the club, and the bazaar. The bazaar involves activities where the members themselves are buying and selling physical and now virtual products as well. This type of activity is being more and more prevalent. These authors have recognized the entertainment as well as the mercial value that munities have. In this paper we focus primarily on the entertainment segment of virtual munities and aim to understand the business model dynamic of this industry. Many users are willing to pay for munities such as the Inter Chess Club Even in a structured game such as chess, members introduced “chekels,” a moary unit that could be exchanged for dollars. It is thus not surprising to see that the social aspects of these munities are rapidly transforming into mercial opportunities for users as well. Design assumptions of the munity will often determine whether developers want to encourage or discourage the profit motives of users. Lack of pany control can cause difficulties. Even though there are millions of people around the world who are active in these virtual worlds, scholars have only recently begun to understand the dynamics of these munities. Because of the revenue streams that virtual worlds are now able to generate, this study focuses on the business model aspects of those munities. Business model literature has grown rapidly over the past five years and is helpful in understanding the challenges that VW developers and users are likely to face in their attempts to develop profitable businesses based on virtual property. Contributions from scholars in business models can be divided into three areas: studies that focus on single factors to highlight their importance, studies that identify several elements that make a business model successful, and studies that identify business model ponents. One of the reasons