Tutorial Six: The Internet and Online Communities

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/
This is the name and website of the online community im going to blog about.
Facebook is a social networking site that allows members to keep in contact with friends by enabling online converations and video and photo sharing. Games and quizzes are also available as well as notifying members of their friends birthdays and upcoming events.
Facebook is one of the more popular social networking sites and you need to be a member to look at peoples profiles and contribute. This is made up of a username and password.
People mainly choose to contribute to this community as they can keep in contact with friends and loved ones. People can update their statuses and any information they want to share with people they have accepted as friends. Many people are involved for entertainment purposes with the games and quizzes available. A lot of teenagers and young adults are involved with facebook as well as an increasing number of older people.

Pros:
- Keeping track of friends
- Photo album
- Video uploads
- Blog merge
- Search engines to find friends
- Privacy settings, people have to be accepted by you before they can interact and be your 'friend' on facebook.
- Inappropriateness and abuse of any sort are removed and the facebook account is removed.

Cons:
- No music
- No chatroom or forum, just private chat
- People that aren't you friends can see aspects of your profile if you have common friends.
- People can make their display name whatever they like - lack of identity and accountability.

As stated above although you choose your friends to interact with people on the outside can still view your photos and bits of your profile if they have any mutual friends.People dont have to display their real names and there is no age limit. All theses are ethical issues to consider.

As mentioned in the lecture material on this topic some communities are reliant on geographic proximity. With facebook, and most social networking sites, geographic proximity isn't an issue. You can be friends and communicate with people all over the world. This defies any traditional notions of community and makes facebook so popular. The only downside that I can think of in regard to this online community compared to traditional communities is the lack of face to face conversation. Its easy to type to people over the computer without putting the effort into really carrying out a conversation with people.