A virtual community or online community is a group of people that primarily or initially communicates or interacts via the Internet. The dawn of the "information age" found groups communicating electronically rather than face to face. A "Computer-mediated community" (CMC) uses social software to regulate the activities of participants. An online community such as one responsible for collaboratively producing open source software is sometimes called a developmentcommunity. Significant socio-technical change has resulted from the proliferation of Internet-based social networks.^[1]

See more:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_community  

Many On-line Communities are in particular for young people. And very, very popular. Lunarstorm, which was started a few years ago by a young man in Sweden, is extremely popular in Sweden. More than 10 % of the Swedes are members and participants in Lunarstorm.

Lunarstorm:   http://www.lunarstorm.co.uk/
                     http://www.lunarstorm.se 
                     http://www.lunarstorm.dk  

Others are:

MySpace:      http://www.myspace.com/

Myplace:       http://www.myplace.com 

Friendster:     http://www.friendster.com 

Linkedin:       https://www.linkedin.com  

Second Life:  http://secondlife.com/ 

There are also On-line Communities for more grown-ups, f.ex. for business people:

OpenBC:       https://www.openbc.com/

 


About these On-line Communities - see also:

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2002/10/21/community.html 

http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communitymanual.htm  

There are a number of very interesting new or recent Online Community Sites, which I intend to analyse and comment before long.

You can start looking at them yourself first:

DIGG            www.digg.com

Twitter           www.twitter.com

Facebook      www.facebook.com    (one of the most successful)

Delicious       http://del.icio.us 

Pounce          www.pounceonline.com 

LinkedIn       www.linkedin.com     (mostly for business purposes)

Let me know what you think in my Guest Book

The Network Service LINKED IN

 

Get direct access to a huge number of contacts

 

 

Networking is today the most efficient way of working. Having direct access to a lot of people worldwide with a lot of professional experience and knowledge is immensely important for any of us.

 

This is exactly what the free network service LINKED IN is all about.  Click here: http://www.linkedin.com/   

 

If you want to join this service you have to fill out a simple form, which appears automatically after you click. You also have to choose your own personal password. Filling out your Personal Profile is very important. The clearer and the more specific you are in describing yourself and your activities and interests the easier it is for other LINKED IN members to find you, if they want to ask you professional questions or to share information with you.

 

After doing that you are a member and immediately on board.

 

LINKED IN has today more than 30 million members around the world. And this number increases every day.

 

How do you invite your contacts and friends to join LINKED IN?  On your opening page you go to INVITATIONS and then to SEND INVITATION.  And here you write the names and e-mail addresses of those people you want to invite.

 

You can also search for names in the Search Box. In this way you can see, if the person you are looking for is already a LINKED IN member. Then you can then invite her or him to join YOUR personal network too (through the box the to right of the screen).

 

If you receive and accept an invitation from one of your friends or contacts to join you will immediately get access to her/his contacts. And not only that – you will also get access to the contacts of these contacts.   This means in practice that as a member you have access to your own contacts ( layer 1 ), to the friends of your contacts ( layer 2 ) and also to the friends of those friends ( layer 3 ).

 

 

To give you a concrete example of the strength of this network I can tell you that I today have 442 direct contacts, 23.000 contacts in the second layer and 1.843.100 contacts in the third. 

 

It is important to underline that it is not only the number of contacts, which is an important point. It is in particular crucial that you ensure that the friends and contacts you invite have profiles near to your activities and interests. If they have that there is a very good chance that their contacts ( in layer 2  ) also share your interests and background.  This is the way to build a really forceful network, which can be of immense use to you every day.

 

And what can you use LINKED IN for?  In the Search Box ( in the upper part of the screen when you have your own list of contacts on the screen) you can write a Name you are looking for? Or a geographical location, from where you look for contacts or expertise? Or a problem/question, where you want to find an expert.   The search engine will then search among all your 1^st – 2^nd - and 3^rd  layer contacts.  And immediately give you the answer. This means that the more 1^st level contacts you have yourself the more useful LINKED IN will be to you.

 

The LINKED IN also has a special Answer Service.  You find it on your personal start page. If you write and send a question in that Box you will most certainly get replies from several people throughout the whole LINKED IN service. Very, very powerful instrument too.

 

LINKED IN is also very successful when you are looking for a new job.

 

Afraid of Spam or unwanted mail?  There is no Spam in this service.  And my personal experience with LINKED IN is that you only get mails from other members, when it is really relevant and interesting.

 

Easy. And free. And you can invite as many contacts as you want. Try to invite many different contacts in as many countries as possible. The more useful LINKED IN will be to YOU – and to all your contacts too.

 

Some people say: I don’t have time for that sort of network.  This is wrong. It does not take time. It saves you a lot of time. It makes you more efficient.

 

As CNN said recently about this service: If you are not LINKED IN you are linked out !

 

And one thing more: If you some day want to quit the service again it is also very, very easy.

 

WELCOME! And GOOD LUCK !

 

 

 

Niels Jørgen Thøgersen      ( e-mail:  kimbrer@gmail.com )

 

November 2008    

 

See also:    www.Niels-Jorgen-Thogersen.dk   

 

                  and/or

 

                  www.simplesite.com/kimbrer