Focus of this online community:
Facebook is an online community where friends and family can keep in touch with one another via online blogs, comments, playing games agaisnt one another, online chat and through many more applications. Facebook is a free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook
Services provided? How do people contribute? How interactive?
Facebook users may choose to join one or more networks, organized by city, workplace, school, and region. These networks help users connect with members of the same network. Users can also connect with friends, giving them access to their friends' profiles.
The website is free to users and generates revenue from advertising including banner ads. Users can create profiles including photos and lists of personal interests, exchange private or public messages, and join groups of friends. By default, the viewing of detailed profile data is restricted to users from the same network and "reasonable community limitations".
People are able to chose who it is that they allow to be their 'friends' and thereby control who can see their own profile this helps to limit and control the kind of people who you do not want accessing your profile.
It is a very interactive site with many more applicationsbeing added to it all the time by the users themselves, it has online chat where you can chose to talk to your friends that are online at the same time as you. It gives the user immediate connection with their friends.
Why do people contribute to Facebook?
Facebook is a source where we can feel connected to family and friends who may live just down the road or on the other side of the world, not only this but it allows the opportunity to connect with fellow professionals in different parts of the world and can join groups of interess and share thoughts with people you have never meet.
Peter Kollock (1999)
- Anticipated reciprocity
- Increased Recognition
- Sense of Efficacy
- Sense of Community
Example from my page: hey! haha maybe, still tho! um im not 2 sure yet, almost exams ahhhh freakin bg so may have 2 b next semester im afraid cos wil b in Perth soon 2 :) wen u next up? yes we do need 2 get OTP big tym
Potential Ethical Issues:
When signing up to Facebook, you generally use your own name so therefore you are not anonymous. You are able to send privite messages where only the receiver can see who sent it and what was said. Also you have the option of blocking people from your profile, only allowing friends to see your profile and uploaded pictures which helps to obtain security within your profile and its happenings.
Benefits this Community Holds over Traditional Notions of Community:
- Can compliment real life communities
- Can provide large amounts of information
- Can provide connections over great distances instantly
- Ability to connect with people of similar interests/needs/ concerns
- Can foster understanding and unity
- Can allow silent observation prior to participation
- Often without monetary cost
- Individual generally have an equality of voice. A move away from mass media.
- Speed of information sharing
- Ability to monitor and regulate users
What this Community Lacks or can not Provide Which Traditional Communities Can:
- Delusional reliance on virtual communities
- Rapid growth may result in unwanted or unperceived changes
- Limited communication tools
- Validity of the information being shared
- Digital divide - access
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook
www.fullcirc.com/community/communitymanual.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_community
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