The activities often include short surveys, quick polls, online focus groups, and participant-led discussion forums.
A community can be seen as a place where "traditional" research and innovation tools are utilized in one single platform over a period of time.
The online approach can offer significant time and cost savings compared to other methods, and provides much greater convenience for researchers, participants and observers.
It also allows for greater sophistication in the segmentation of the sample because participants can be recruited online, whether from databases, panels, surveys or other sources, rather than just by traditional means.
Or they might have a different view to the majority of the group, but are reluctant to mention it for fear of this leading to the moderator focusing on them for a long period of time.