Document,Informaiton & Knowledge ›› 2021, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (2): 68-78.doi: 10.13366/j.dik.2021.02.068

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The Predicament and Countermeasures of the Elderly-Oriented Online Community Information Services: Lessons from the Shutdown of “Yinling.com”

  

  • Online:2021-03-10 Published:2021-05-07

Abstract: [Purpose/Significance]Taking the shutdown of the "Yinling.com" as an example, which is a large-scale online community for the senior in China, this article aims to find the key factors of the development of elderly-oriented online community information services, reveal the existing challenges and problems, and explore the future countermeasures.[Design/Methodology]We collected the content of the online community shutdown announcements and discussions among the administrators and users from "Yinling.com". A total of two posts and 358 valid comment texts were retained as the corpus. Content analysis was used to summarize and organize the texts from four aspects: users’ emotions, users’ needs, problems and challenges, as well as countermeasures.[Findings/Conclusion]The elderly-oriented development of online community information services involves many aspects such as the method and content of service, and the operating mode. The predicament of the elderly-oriented development of them is mainly reflected in the contradictions of adherence to public welfare and running maintenance underdeveloped service systems and growth of users’ demands, attracting new users and maintaining the habits of current users. The aforementioned issues need to be responded in three aspects: raising operating funds, obtaining technical supports, and reinforcing the study of users.[Originality/Value]This paper explores the predicament encountered by “Yinling.com” and feasible countermeasures of elderly-oriented online community information services. It also provides theoretical basis and practical suggestions for their elderly-oriented development.

Key words: Online information service, Elderly-oriented development, Senior online community, Yinling.com