Building an online community is difficult. If anyone has good research papers that have analyzed online communities and has successfully predicted the culture of an online community at its inception, please let me know..
Online communities are the future, but no truly knows how to build one... or build a culture. Sure, you can have privacy settings, a good brand, and video chat, but those are all indirect contributors to what the community will become. None of them dictate (1) who will use it (2) how people will use it (3) and which audience will be attracted to the community.
She's not precisely on point, but if you're curious start by reading danah boyd's work: http://www.danah.org/papers/ . The stuff at the top mostly deals with teenagers, but her older papers deal with online communities in general.
Online communities are the future, but no truly knows how to build one... or build a culture. Sure, you can have privacy settings, a good brand, and video chat, but those are all indirect contributors to what the community will become. None of them dictate (1) who will use it (2) how people will use it (3) and which audience will be attracted to the community.