On May 5th, 1997, the European edition of Business Tech Magazine led with Hoffman’s cover story Internet Communities: How They're Shaping Electronic Commerce. This cover story highlights the extent to which the term virtual community has become almost synonymous with various forms of group-CMCs (computer mediated communication), including email-list forums, chat-systems such as IRC, web-based discussion areas and usenet news-groups. There was no debate in the Business Tech Magazine article as to