Saturday 17 March 2007

Qotw 7: Twit is In!

An online community is “a group of people that may or may not primarily or initially communicate or interact via the Internet.” (Virtual community, 2007) Apart from that, different virtual communities have different levels of interaction and participation among their members. According to a survey done by Horrigan (2001), it was found that almost 90 million Americans have participated in online communities. This shows that online communities have found its way into our lives.

There are limitations to a real life community that an online one can surpass. Although lacking the physical characteristic, the structure of virtual communities allows for communication over vast distances. It also allows for people from different times zones to interact in an asynchronous nature. (Wellman & Gulia, 1996)

According to Rheingold, he believes that people in virtual communities interact for a myriad of reasons. They can engage in intellectual discussions, have arguments, share knowledge on various subjects, play games, conduct businesses, have idle chat, flirt. But, the only aspect that lacks from virtual communities is the absence of the physical characteristic in the interaction. (Fernback & Thompson, 1995)

Twitter was introduced in March 2005. “Twitter is a social networking service that allows members to inform each other about what they are doing and what they think. It allows users to send messages via phone or instant messaging. Two SMS gateway numbers are available - one for USA and one UK number for international use. Users can receive updates from other selected users via web, IM, or SMS” (“Twitter”, 2007).

Twitter’s main interface has a theme with the heading, “What are you doing?” Twitter users are able to hide behind a pseudonym as they post messages on what they are currently doing/reply to their friends’ messages. Messages on Twitter, however, are only allowed to be of 140 characters. This makes messages short and straight to the point. In general, people choose to sign up for Twitter using either their real names/pseudonyms. Furthermore, they are able to post short messages with regards to their current activities.

I believe Twitter is great for catching up with your friends especially over long distances. It provides an alternative to MSN or IRC due to the real time interaction. Moreover, with the tagline “What are you doing?” gives a blogging-like vibe to it. As we have learnt, blogging can act as a mean to document your life. Only Twitter condenses this to bite sized information limited to 140 characters instead.

Despite initial differences on the surface, I would still consider Twitter as an online community as it allows interaction among strangers and friends. Rheingold defines virtual communities as “social aggregations” that “emerge from the Internet when enough people sustain public discussions long enough to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace. (Fernback & Thompson, 1995).

Regardless if Twitter serves to bring communities together or to separate smaller communities from larger ones, I believe that Twitter still constitutes an online community. Twitter is like an online community where each of its functions resembles that of other existing online communities. Communication is a key factor in building a community, and Twitter's main function is for friends to communicate with one another. Relationships are subsequently strengthened and fostered through this communication, and thus, an online community is formed.

References:

Fernback, J, & Thompson, B (1995). Virtual Communities:Abort, Retry, Failure?. Retrieved March 17, 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 March 17, 2007 from <http://www.acm.org/%7Eccp/references/wellman/wellman.html>

Virtual Community. (2007). Virtual Community. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved March 17, 2007 from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_communities>

Twitter. (2007). Twitter. In Wikipedia [Web]. Retrieved March17, 2007 from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter>

1 comment:

The Blogtopus said...

hey this is the link to my friends blog i showed in class the other day.
http://acidcrue.blogspot.com/