CrackBerry.com: The role of superusers in a virtual brand community

This study is a netnographic investigation of the virtual brand community, CrackBerry.com. The objective is to gain a deeper understanding of the social and informational exchange that takes place between the members of the community. Crackberry.com is a grassroots virtual community centered on the consumption of BlackBerry smartphones. Using netnography allows for an unobtrusive exploration of consumer-mediated communication in the context of consumption. The findings of this study were twofold. First, three major themes surfaced from the data: addiction, benevolence, and skepticism. Second, an influential community member was identified, the SuperUser. Together, these findings helped define the role of the SuperUser as the core fabric of consumer-mediated communications in a virtual brand community. The findings are based on the investigation of a community that is centered on a technologically advanced product. The theoretical and marketing implications lie in the deep understanding of virtual brand communities revealed in this study.