ONLINE community means different things to different people. For some, it conjures warm, fuzzy, reassuring images of people chatting and helping each other. For others, it generates dark images of conspiracy, subversive and criminal behaviour and invasion of privacy. Still others see a future in which physical communities are undermined or replaced by online communities. Virtual communities, however, are cultural aggregations that emerge when enough people bump into each other often enough in cyberspace. A virtual community is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face to face and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks.
Many people join these communities to form groups of common interests, share goals, activities, share resources to satisfy each other’s needs. Some include enjoyment and pleasure, while others strongly associate community with a physical locale, such as a village or town. The most demotic in the row is www.orkut.com, formed by the creme de la creme of the Internet — Google.
Orkut is a freeware online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends. When I first received its invitation in my e-mail, I thought it would just be another group of a small number of people who would have cuffed into this community as a result of free-time surfing, but it proved otherwise. After I completed my profile there, it dawned upon me that it’s a whole new world that exists in Orkut. Here, you can add friends, rate them, search for them, write scraps in their scrap books, become their fans, write their testimonials, post your photo album and above all join a number of communities from a list of a thousand other communities of your particular interest, where you can post your views on any forum formed by any member of the community and can find an eclectic mixture of western and Asian thoughts.
Can’t find the community of your interest? Make your own and tell others to join it. You might often come across a window stating bad, bad server. No donut for you. Do not panic — for Google might have to improve their servers for Orkut due to its unexpected growth. Don’t be surprised to see the profiles of singers like Ali Zafar and Shehzad Roy. Models such as, Mehreen Rahil and Amina Shafaat are also part of us — online — with a huge number of friends and fans.
How is Microsoft reacting to this sudden surge in tapping into the virtual world of Google? Although Microsoft is shilly-shallying to counter the 1Gb storage space of Gmail by Google (except www.hotmail.it which has 25 Mb of inbox), Orkut is defended by www.mywallop.com; “a research project of the Social Computing Group at Microsoft Research, exploring how people share media and build conversations in the context of social networks”.
Wallop is no different from Orkut in purpose and has a stupendous interface. Web developers, observe! It’s a treat to watch. It feels similar to sitting in the control room of a ship of 2030 and flying into the territories of his or her friends along with the sounds of its media files support. Write your blog and let other people know how you feel today. Both Orkut and Wallop are freeware, unlike Naseeb, which is an online community for Muslims.
Naseeb’s site, www.naseeb.com connects young, educated, professional Muslims through networks of friends. The site provides a safe, discreet and trusted environment for meeting other people with similar backgrounds. Creators of Naseeb.com believe that whether you’re here looking for new friends, a soul mate, or activity partners — it’s all a matter of destiny (Naseeb). All invitees can make their profiles here. But features like online chat with Naseeb.com members, profile view log to find out your admirers, people who had been checking you out and sending regards to anyone around are restricted to paid members only (almost $18.90 a month).
The community has much more than finding friends and soul mates — yellow pages, events and jobs; you can also get prayer timings of any day of any month in your city just by typing the zip or postal code, or the city name; a feature powered by www.prayerfinder.com.
Vibes is another community which drew my attention where people posted their queries and views on different Islamic thoughts followed by venerable talkbacks by Muslim Intellectuals. During such a search, I found out the true meaning and validity of Istikhara with references to Quran and the Hadith. One of the vibes contained vision of Interest free banking, discussed by Dr Mohammad Nejatullah Siddiqui, winner of the Faisal International Prize for Islamic Studies, and one of the leading authorities on Islamic Finance. Dr Aminah McCloud — an African American Muslim tells us how she embraced Islam and appeals to the young Muslims to study Islam
Still not getting any invitation from anyone? Don’t just sit and shrug your shoulders, www.hi5.com will accept you even if you don’t know anyone around, and then it will be up to you how you increase the circle of your friends. Hi5 has mainly the same features as any other online community might have, but its colourful and user-friendly interface makes it pleasing. Hi5 refers to people as social beings who don’t like being forced into separate buckets of overly specialized services which many online communities provide. Hence, a member’s purpose can evolve overtime and expand in unexpected directions. Hook up with old and new friends by taking advantage of the people you know and the people they know. You can also reunite with old friends from high school, college and companies where you’ve worked in the classmate section of Hi5.com. You can find old friends to reminisce about the past or find new contacts through the people that you knew so well.
Want to access your account anytime, anywhere, check inbox, send requests, invite new friends, view daily horoscope and enjoy all other features? WowFriends Mobile connects you with your online community even when you are on the move! Sign up for www.wowfriends.com and no matter which country you are in, as long as your cell phone supports downloading via GPRS/CDMA 1X (check with your carrier for compatibility), you can make the most of WowFriends Mobile, plus it is Free! On the other hand, the site itself has been rolling out a selective variety of extremely popular and user-friendly features to serve its users, including testimonials, polls, forums, eCards, horoscopes, interest groups, etc.
There are other popular online communities such as www.friendster.com and www.spinchat.com, more specific in nature such as www.matchfinder.com and www.shadionline.com. However, communicating via the Internet is no substitute for actual human interaction. A virtual hug, shown in the form of two parentheses —( ), is certainly not as warm, comfortable, and satisfying as a real hug. And sharing a nourishing, tasty meal is impossible in cyberspace. But online communities do enable meaningful communication among people separated by distance, time, and to some extent, culture. However, it would be foolish in this arena to try and predict the future. After all, who would have predicted 10 years ago that there would be Internet and that its influence would be far-reaching?
ONLINE community means different things to different people. For some, it conjures warm, fuzzy, reassuring images of people chatting and helping each other. For others, it generates dark images of conspiracy, subversive and criminal behaviour and invasion of privacy. Still others see a future in which physical communities are undermined or replaced by online communities. Virtual communities, however, are cultural aggregations that emerge when enough people bump into each other often enough in cyberspace. A virtual community is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face to face and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks.
