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You Gotta have friends
A friend is a present you give to yourself, said Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote Treasure Island. I can’t imagine what I would do without my friends. Can you?
Old friends are always the best, but it’s always nice to make some new ones, especially since (sometimes) old friends move away or you do (new schools, new city, etc) or you have a falling out. You may keep in touch over email or chatting, and they may visit occasionally, but things are never really the same once they move away and it’s not that easy to make a new friend. So much chemistry is involved. Making a new friend means that you have to like each other and have things in common to discuss, otherwise things will get boring pretty soon. So how do we make friends in this century?
Before the Internet, it took a lot of time to make friends, but now thanks to communities, it is starting to become very easy. I’m talking about Orkut.com, Hi5.com, Communities.com and Naseeb.com, the new generation of community websites that allow people to make friends like never before.
The idea behind ‘communities’ is very simple. Get people to talk together without any of the usual reserve or shyness that you might feel in the real versus the virtual world. For example, it would be very hard for me to approach someone I would like to know at a party, but online, if I see the same person, I’d just send them an email or a short message saying “hi” and see how they respond. Most of all, these online communities make it easy to find groups of people with the same interests as you.
So what do you get? Well, as a member of any of the communities, you’ll get your own “place” that other members can visit to learn more about you and you’re free to customize your place as you want with information about who you are, where you’re from, things you like, etc. You can also add a profile photo and even upload photos of yourself or your hobbies to your photo gallery. You also get a scrap book or a guestbook, links page, personal blogs and lots more. As you make new friends you can easily keep track of them in your friends list. The lists keep changing as your friends sign in and sign out, so you will know when your new friends are online and thus you can chat with them or just ‘Scrap’ them a hi. You can also join groups which range from Philosophy to Fashion with each group member discussing various subjects under the heading. Now you can find out that you’re not the only one who still likes ‘Airwolf’.
Whether you’re looking for new friends in a different part of the world or in your locality you will be able to find them here. If you’re looking for someone in particular you can search for members by age, sex, location, etc. When you find someone that seems interesting you simply send them a message and start chatting. It’s that easy.
So how do you join a community? There are two types of communities online. Closed or as they’re known, ‘Trusted Communities’, and ‘Open Communities’. The open communities include and (which is a site for Muslims) and anyone can sign up for free. The trusted communities include and , where you can join only through invitation, that is if someone you know is a member of Orkut or Hi5, only they can send you an invitation to join, otherwise you will have to wait for a while until someone you know does become a member.
Communities are a great way to stay in touch with friends and to meet new ones especially if they’re friends of friends. At least you won’t have a blank face anymore when your friend mentions a name. So fire up that computer and come online, join a community and give yourself that gift. Come be my friend.
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