Ex 7.5.1.6 - Understand the concept of an online (virtual) community

Examples of online communities include:

• social networking websites - YouTube, MySpace, Facebook
• Internet forums
• chat rooms
• online computer games

Social networking sites such as YouTube, MySpace and Facebook allow you the user to upload video clips, pictures and text to web sites where other people can view them.  You can if you wish with some sites restrict who can access your pages.  There are also messaging tools to allow you to communicate with your friends via the site.

Internet forums are web sites that allow you to ask questions from other people who are registered at the site.  Internet forums enable you to get help from other Internet users.  A Forum/Discussion Group is therefore a web site where you post a question about something that you don't understand and another user or users on the Internet replies to it.  Most of the Forums/Discussion Groups are free to use, although not all.  Forums/Discussion Groups are available for both hardware and software issues.  Some examples that you can try include Discussion Groups from Microsoft about their Office Applications:

Chat rooms are sites where you can communicate in real time with other online users by typing what you have to say and posting it to other users who are connected to the same chat room as yourself.

Online computer games are social networks dedicated to playing Internet games.