Online communities

What is the focus of this community?
Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.

What services are provided?
Free online account
Social networking - communicating, instant messaging, email, blogging
Quizzes
Gaming
Mobile
Events calender - birthday, party reminders
Competitions
Advertising
Stores photos, videos, contacts
Share links and videos from youtube or from your personal collection, etc

How interactive is this site?
Facebook is one of the most interactive sites known. Apart from the obvious (stated above) Facebook offers interactive games, one being Farmville where you can invite friends to join your game where they can help produce a cyber farm.

How can people contribute?
Firstly by signing up to the huge online community it provides, where you can then send invitations to other friends asking them to join. You slowly build your community while you continuously add old and new friends, family and even work colleagues or people you don't know!
You can share your life over FB (Facebook) by uploading photos, videos from youtube or from home, sharing personal information. Photos that are uploaded, you can "tag" the people in them which will add the photo to their profile. People can comment on photos, on your comments shared on your profile or someone elses- It's never ending!

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on why people choose to contribute to this community. What is it they are seeking?
Some people simply use FB for social interaction, to keep in contact with friends living away from home or close by. However a lot of people gain a sense of belonging and identity where they can share their thoughts, feelings and general life with people all over the world. People create fan pages of all sorts. e.g. the one have joined recently is the cheese roll appreciation club - being a fan page for people of Southland where cheese rolls are a favourite winter food. By joining these kinds of groups give people a sense of identity and belonging with other people with the same likes and dislikes as them.

Cut and paste an example of the type of topics being discussed (you may have to provide a context to your excerpt).


Here is a discussion on Moral Justifications:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=172484249794&ref=search#!/topic.php?uid=172484249794&topic=20297

Considering material presented during the course and make comment on the potential ethical issues that may arise in this community e.g. lack of identity and accountability.
Internet communities are not always safe.There are privacy issues with most things accessible over the internet. As facebook is used via the internet people from all over the world can access your personal information and photos. This can lead to identity theft or the creation of a false identity in hope of creating friendships with vulnerable people. Facebook also offers the opportunity for people to create pages that can promote anything from porn to discriminatory offense against religion and more.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on the benefits this community holds over traditional notions of community e.g. communities reliant on geographic proximity.
Facebook provides instant free communication to friends and family all over the world. From the instant chat to email and wall postings and sharing photos.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment what this community lacks or can not provide which traditional communities can.
One thing people believe Facebook lacks is that it can't provide that personal social interaction you get from direct contact communication. People will argue that relying on Facebook for social interaction is not healthy however I beg to differ. For example those who cannot get out and about like everybody else due to an intellectual or physical disability of a kind find happiness in communicating with people over Facebook, which is not exactly unhealthy for them if they enjoy this rather than direct contact. However we may say it would be unhealthy for a mentally and physically well individual to.