Virtual Communties - Community of Interest

Community of Interest - Friendster

First of all, as a member, I would like to perceive Friendster is more likely community of interest instead of social community since my objective of joining this site is to know more friends who are sharing the same interest of mine.

Introduction
Since the technology had been developed and become more advanced, most of the people are now doing all kind of online activities based on their interest. There are many software are designed for the purpose connecting the user who share the same interests together regardless geographic distance and equation of time such as Lifeknot, Yahoo Group and Friendster. Technology evolves to provide a space for interest interaction and self presentation. It creates online entertainment, excavates interest of somebody and even makes opportunities for million people to explore their identities.
Due to the convenience of the technology, most of the people would try to find excitement through online activities based on their interests in real life such as soccer enthusiast plays online soccer games, sociable people make new friends on Friendster. These users would like to share their experience, opinion and excitement about particular interest.


My point of View – Is it “real” community?
However, putting myself in this situation, the first question comes on my mind is “Are they telling the truth?” or “Should I tell them the truth?” Making new friends is one of my interests and thus I registered as a member of Friendster about a year ago. Hope that I vcan know more “friends of my friends” who are sharing the same interest, and I did succeed. We talked about music, swimming and so forth. As time goes by, my friend’s friends are actually does not exist in my real life. Finally, there is no idea whom they actually are. “Emancipatory potential” in these networks, the connections they create—usually based on similar interests or real life associations—actually do just the opposite.” (Imnotatfault, 2005)
After the incident, I would actually rather to believe Friendster is not a real community.



About Friendster
Friendster was created by Jonathan Abrams who was a former software engineer of Netscape. He experienced online dating for few times and made him felt creepy. So, he decided to design Friendster which is more closely replicated how people really meet people- through their friends’ friends or related connection.
“The name Friendster was born out the connection of the words 'friend' and 'Napster'. Napster helps people make electronic connections to exchange information and and Friendster attempts to do the same for friends. (Jean Ferguson, 2003)
According to research, Friendster is an online community that connects people to the network of friends for making new friends, meet someone to date, or help your friends meet new people. After register as a member of Friendster, you may create your own personal and private community. You can communicate with people who are connected to you through net works of mutual friends. With uploaded pictures, others are able to see your face while they click on your profile.
Each individual (as a node) would be linked to other nodes on the network, by supplying access to other users through their already existed connections within the network, from there; it forms a connection which indirectly mediates interaction.

It is community BUT it is not real
There is most of the time Friendster creates some suspicious points and those can result in people start thinking of whether it is really happened in this online community. Does it really work well and effective? They met some of the problems in fact especially when adding with another user, for example, the warning is displayed:
“You are about to add Alex as a friend. Alex will be notified, and will have to confirm that you are friends. Your full name and email address will be sent to Alex for identification purposes if you proceed. Continue only if you really are friends with Alex.” (Friendster.com)
This proves that making new friends on the network seems to be fun, easy and interesting. But it still involves queries with the statement above “Continue only if you really are friends with Alex.” In addition, you need to be approved from the person before he/she accept your invitation. It means that the system will still unable to tell the true from the false. Where as in real life, while we meet friends-of- friends face to face, we will automatically greet each other, shake hands and introduce ourselves. There is no doubt at all to consider, “Do I want to be your friend?” They are right in front of us! The complicated and full of doubt ness thinking process can be abolished.
“By linking to users who are not real friends, the authenticity of the network comes into question, as it is built on layered levels of connections, known in Friendster as “degrees” (Friendster). Anderson added, “I could care less about that; if it's not clear, people want to socialize. There's no need to be a friend of a friend of a friend to do that” (Imnotatfault, 2005)

Fakester and Trust
Friendster user is being evaluated by looking at the number of someone has. More friends you have in your profile, more recognized by the others. In fact, the user who has only few friends on Friendster has the intension of just adding friends they can find whom are not really familiar with. For those who have over float friends profile in the system, it does not mean that they have wide social network in real life since they might just add who they can find as well; opposing to having a more like real life representative group of friends, or they are not a person in fact.
Fakester has been a big issue on Friendster. Fakester means Friendster users create fake personality profile for creative expression; it allows people to more quickly find one’s friend and acquaintances. Take myself as example, I actually have two profiles on Friedster, as one with real personality information provided and fake personality for another. After a few months, with the fake and prettier pictures, there is result showing the account of my “Fakester” received more invitation compare with the real Friendster. It could prove me really well welcoming personality posting on this system is more important than revealing real self. They did not add me for the purpose of sharing same interests, but my physical appearance.
How can it be a real community if many people are putting masks on? Or how can we differentiate whether the users are real or fake. While somebody start suspecting means losing one’s trust. “While people love Fakester, they also reflect the fundamental weakness of trust on Friendster. Is anything actually real? One user told me that Fakester was actually great because they reminded him that nothing presented on Friendster is real.(Danah Boyd) It is fun and yet it is not real.
In real life, even we conceal our true character for once; it would not last for life. When we meet someone face to face, true features would be exposed in just a short while. Perhaps we can find a friend who sharing same interests like dancing, online chatting on this particular activities which involve movement is more likely be an “armchair strategist”; where as we are able to perform dancing skill practically in real community. I would not trust anyone online who is telling me how great his dancing skill is. Thus, Friendster’s Fakester is provided for someone who is trying to regulate privacy, self identical, and protect themselves in public space.

Addiction
Many people get addicted to Friendster and spend most of the valuable time to surf on the site in order to satisfy their curiosity towards a person they want to be friend with. After they decide to approach that particular stranger, they start interacting with each other. This group of people is taking a peek into each other lives. It does create a sense of familiarity of a person we do not know by observing and communicating frequently. They will then slowly trust each other and feel the person they know on Friendster does exist in their real lives. Finally, they might get confused relationship between friends in real world (Friend) and friends on Friendster (Friendster). On their mind, it is all the same, friend means friend as long as they are still communicating with each other.
However, “Is the virtual representation of humans in two dimensions likely to replace the real dimension model?” (Deri-Galway, 2004) In my research, which I find it supportive, identity of virtual community does not represent the human full experience and life style that in offline world. For instance, dating in real life involves process from holding hands to marriage while online dating is just to express the passion in words, seeing each other faces through web cam or some other web based method.

Conclusion
In this comprehension, I just base on my own experience and opinion to stick on “online community (Friendster) is not a real community. More than million people are interested in meeting new friends on Friendster. It is fun and exciting to share our interest with the same community and yet as I stated above, sharing interest with online community is just the way of “Friendster” express their mind and experience in words. Compare to real life, there is still involving practical expression which I found more tangible. At the most basic level, we can move, touch, feel and smell. To me, trustworthiness is another important feature to form a judgment on virtual community. I would not say virtual community is real while I do not trust it is real.



References
Danah Boyd, Reflection on Friendster, Truat and Intimacy, Retrieved: 1st April 2005, from (http://www.danah.org/papers/search='issues%20on%20friendster)
Deri-Galway, Community Portal Survey (2004), Retrieved: 1st April 2005, from http://sw-portal.deri.org/papers/deliverables/Community%20Portal%20Survey.pdf
Jean Ferguson, Friendster(2003), Retrieved: 1st April 2005, from http://www.unc.edu/~fergusje/school/jomc391/
Open Sesame, imnotatfault (2005), Retrieved: 1st April 2005, from http://caxton.stockton.edu/imnotatfault/iws

Bibliography:
Sue Boetcher, Healthy Duggan, Nancy White, What is a Virtual Community and Why would You ver Need one??(2004), Retrievd: 1st April 2005, from http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communitywhatwhy.htm
Danielle Terdiman, Friendster Quickly Gathering Foes(2005), Retrieved:1st April 2005, from http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0%2C1284%2C61150%2C00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3