QOTW7: Twitter Dum, Twitter Dee

Don't you just LOVE social networking sites? Like Friendster isn't popular enough, there are a host, make that a galaxy of other web sites that let you connect with friends. To date, I am part of a myriad of different websites; from Friendster, to MySpace, to Live Journal, to Blogger and most recently, Twitter. It's overwhelming I tell you, frankly speaking, I have a hard time trying to keep up with just Friendster, let alone the rest of the social networking sites.

However, in today's information age, especially when WEB 2.0 where the internet is no longer passive but ever so interactive, these web sites are the core to many people's social networks. Without them, our social circle would probably consist of only people in our immediate circle of friends. These online communities allow us to explode our social circle exponentially. It also makes for a good ice breaker. So, do you have a Friendster account or a blog I can peruse?


WHAT IS AN ONLINE/VIRTUAL COMMUNITY?

The concept of a community use to refer to a set of relationships that operate within a specific boundary or locale (Fernback & Thompson, 1995). However, with the advent of the Internet, all boundaries of time and space is broken, allowing people to communicate anywhere and at any time. This breaking down of boundaries have created a new form of community; the online community; communities that exist in cyberspace. More specifically, a group of people that may or may not primarily or initially communicate or interact via the Internet(Virtual Communities, 2007).

SO IS TWITTER A ONLINE COMMUNITY?

Twitter is a online social networking service that allows members to inform each other of what they are doing and what they think (Twitter, 2007). More inportantly it allows members to interact with each other through their "friends" list or their social networks on the site. It is akin to visiting a friend for a conversation, for idle chat or a sprited debate. The site is mainly used for information gathering(Wellman & Gulia, 1996).

On example of that is a "conversation" our class had with Kevin today. The interaction we had was both sponteneous and dynamic. People were interacting like they were in "real life". The community per se here is mainly the people in our class.

WHY DOES TWITTER CONSTITUTE AS AN ONLINE COMMUNITY?

Twitter is a platform for the creation of the same class community outside of the classroom. A kind of pseudo-community. This newly formed community is almost the same as a real life class room community but it transends the boundary of space(Fernback & Thompson, 1995).

Twitter also serves as a supplement for companionship, social support and a sense of belonging (Wellman & Gulia, 1996). How so you might ask? For example, I might be alone at home and I see on the site that a couple of my friends have posted. This creates an avenue for me to communicate with them via the site despite being alone at home.

Twitter also acts like a forum or a bullitin board where people can post their comments, or in this case their thoughts. Don't know what to study for the exam? Post a question here and someone might just answer you. Feeling down because you have just gone through a bad break up? Post it up and some of your "friends" may console you.

CONCLUSION...

To answer the increasingly asked question; are online communities "real" communities. Well, for one thing online communities are not about to replace real ones. To say the least, online communities mainly supplement the real communities. With that note, online communities are not real communities but an extension of people's physical social network. However, online communities differ from real communities when it comes to intimate relationships (Fernback et.al., 1995 & Wellman et.al., 1996). In that, it is not humanly possible to have a intimate relationship with all the hundred over or even thousands of your friends on Friendster alone?

Oh and Twitter IS a web site that houses online communities. :)

REFERENCES:

Fernback, J. & Thompson, B. (1995). Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry or Failure? Retrieved on March 15, 2007 from http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.html

Twitter. (2007). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved on March 15, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Virtual_community&oldid=115277136

Virtual Communities. (2007). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved on March 15, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Twitter&oldid=115023086

Wellman, B. & Gulia, M. (1996). Netsurfers Don't Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities. Retrieved on March 15, 2007 from http://www.acm.org/%7Eccp/references/wellman/wellman.html