A virtual community or online community is a group of people that may or may not primarily or initially communicate or interact via the Internet. Therefore making Twitter an online community. As mentioned in Wikipedia, Twitter is a social networking service that allows members to inform each other about what they are doing and what they are thinking. It allows users to send messages via the phone or instant messaging. I feel it is an online community because it serves as both a blog and a forum. Twitter allows comments to be posted, acts somewhat like a blog and has a different level of interaction and participation among members. Your comments can either be viewed by both strangers and friends on your list or just by those on your friends list.
Being used to other forms of online communities such as Friendster, Clubsnap and Multiply, I however found Twitter difficult to get used to. No, not because it was complex, but because of its simplicity, something that I am not used to. Its basic function, to post your update, such as what you are currently doing, post links to sites and view other people’s comments and updates. Even your profile is simple; there is no requirement that you need to state your age, what you like, what you don’t like, and where you live.
The comments posted can act as what I would call blog entries. As mentioned on the site in bold and eye-catching are the words “What are you doing?” Keeping your friends updated on topics such as what’s going on in your life what interesting findings you’ve found and would like to share. Just like blogs, it allows you to add friends into your list, and these friends can be viewed and added by others. It allows one to customize how they would like their “site” to look like, allows for an avatar, and entries are in chronological order, all characteristics of a blog. Therefore, this is another reason why I feel it can be considered an online community, if a blog is an online community, so is Twitter.com.
However, unlike usual blogs such as Multiply, Blogger, Xanga or Livejournal, Twitter has a word limit of a 140 characters on each entry you can post. There something called the “Public timeline” which allows you to view other comments and updates people have posted.
These comments can range from personal comments to website links that people find interesting and useful.An example of a personal comment would be:
An example of a link or general comment would be:
Communities do not necessarily have to be solitary groups of densely-knit neighbors, but also exist as social networks of kin, friends, and workmates who do not necessarily live in the same neighborhoods. (Wellman 1988a, 1993). Twitter provides just that, for this assignment, adding friends formed a social network online. One of classmates and friends even though we may not have much in common or stay in the same neighborhood, we are still a social network, and therefore, an online community.
Twitter, IS an online community.
References
Fernback.J & Thompson.B (1995) Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure? Retrieved on March 14, 2007, from http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.html
Wellman.B & Gulia.M (1996)Net Surfers Don't Ride Alone:
Virtual Communities as Communities. Retrieved on March 14, 2007, from http://www.acm.org/~ccp/references/wellman/wellman.html
Wikipedia (2007) Virtual Community. Retrieved on March 14, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_communities
Wikipedia (2007) Twitter.Retrienved on March 14, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
