Jill - Virtual Community

Virtual Communities

A virtual community is an interaction between people or persons via internet, exchnaging information and ideas. There are many names for virtual communities; e-communities, social network, and online communities. Virtual communities can be small or big, they can also be with people you know in reallife or with people you have only met online.
Th internet is a growing media that allows us to publish and interect and exchange information digitally. The internet has also been dubbed the “Third world”
Virtual communities can be a passage way to develop a group that is far away from eachother or bring together old friends and family. People may have the same ideas and interests but may be half way across the world. The virtual community allows a connection between people.
There are so many communities out there. Some communities are art based, some are for intereactions with school like forums or online courses, also there is msn where you can silently talked to your added friends. Then there are others like myspace and facebook where you can customize a page that is your profile and where you can interact with other members of that site. I think though some people abuse virtual communities and post themselves. So many people have posted themselves by taking pictures and writing about their everyday lives. I think that is abusing the site because virtual communities are for sharing and not for gloating.
What is also interesting with virtual communities is the members that join them . There are different stages in being a member. The first stage is the peropheral stage here the person is not yet a member but is a viewer of the community. The second stage is called inbound also known as a newbie and this is where the person is investigating the community. The third stage is called insider or regular and this is where the person becomes a member of the community. Then boundary is the fourth stage which is where they become more involved and sustain their participation in the community. The final stage is called outbound and this is when the member decides to break off and leave the community. Every person is different and it might take a verylong time to break away from the community since its is what helps to define out profile on the internet.
I found an online community that organzies and catalogues family trees and your family name so you can add to your digital family tree as the years go by and add other historic information. It’s a memorial site and keeps track of your origins. You see where your family was first from and where it was circa 1920. Its quite a fascinating site that can help to presurve your family identity.
Virtual communities are becoming more and more popular. They can be used for school, social, leisure, and even work. They allow us to stay in contact with people or to allow ourselves to meet new people who share the same need to communicate in our busy fast pace world. Virtual communities can even get so big and great its own culture.
People who can’t identify or relate to preexisting communities go out and create their own. There are of course guidelines to creating your own online community. First there has to be a sense of usefullness. If the site or community is not worth connecting to then there isn’t really a reason for it to exist. So the creator has to be flexibile and allow for member’s input and make the community easy to contribute to and to access. You have to be open for change. Allow suggestions from members and to allow your knowledge to evolve. Then you have to allow your members to be credited and have to measure their contributions. Then finally to allow members to respond to other members.
Virtual Communities are a new phenomenon in the late 20th and early 21st centery and I think will just get bigger and bigger until the internet is no more.


Works Cited Page


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_communities

http://www.linkpendium.com/genealogy/USA/sur/surc-K/surc-Kor/surc-Korgemagi

http://archive.ord/index.php

http://www.ourmedia.org/

http://www.akakurdistan.com/

http://www.nytimes.om/special/bosnia/

http://web.macam98.ca.ac.il/~horit_a/chkpoint.htm

http://www.drik.net/


Virtual Community Project – “Double Lives”
By Jill Korgemagi

For my Virtual community project I am doing an online do-over book. I was first ispired by the do-over book called “Pretty Little Mistakes.” It’s a book where you choose your own adventure but in this case its like a passage of your life. You get to choose where you want to go and your actions affect your decions. Usually in one sitting you can can read through your life starting after high school.

So my idea is to recreate this type of fantasy exploration but put it on the internet where you can create your own avatar and then have a profile where you can document your double lives. Other members can look at your avatar and can read about your adventures. For the stories themselves when the website is initially posted there will be a set amounrt of stories but then when people become members and have a certain amount of double lives they can add their own stories and passages, but they will have to be screened and approved by the website directors. You can’t just post any story they have to be okayed.

The format of my community can be considered to be sonic memory. It’s a website where people can share their own stories or post fictional stories to aid in the doublelive adventure.

The meaning of this project is for people to be able to go on imaginary adventure. I think istis a popular concept, many people do the same thing through books, video games like the sims or RPG games, movies, and other websites like Second Life. I think it would be fun to have your own avatar that could look like whatever you want and then you can have a proflile. The profile will post the picture of your avatar and you can add your friends or add stories that you like so you can tract their stories. It’s a media sharing and media swapping based community.

I think my audience will be very dynamic. I think it will attract young and older people. People like to have fun and with this community people will be able to see what its like to make other decisions in life and to see how else their life could be like, whether it be realalistic or fantasy.

I would like there to be different life categories. There will be different catgeories like fantasy, space, realiasic, historic, and even missions lives you can explore.