Wellman and Gulia (1996) brought up a term they called computer supported social networks (CSSNs). This term included electronic mail, bulletin boards, newsgroups and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) as examples of CSSN. Wellman and Gulia also highlighted that all CSSN provide companionship, social support, information and a sense of belonging.
So we know a community can result from a social network. Fernback and Thompson (1995) were careful to interpret Richard Sennett’s notion of community culture. They said that although the concept of community usually refers to social relationships that occur within boundaries, whether geographically or not, there is an ideological dimension to the concept. Fernback and Thompson were referring to a sense of common character, identity or interests each community possess.
Twitter’s tagline reads ‘what are you doing’. It functions like a hyperactive bulletin board whereby posts get updated every available second of the day depending on how many friends you have on your list. Basically, it provides a textbox (much like a comment box) for you to type in what you are doing right at the minute. People on your friends’ list would read it off their own page about what you were doing with your time and they, in turn, would post about what they were doing.
In the initial stage, it does not allow you to know much about a user, just that you get to know where he or she lives based on a few lines about the user under the ‘Bio’ section. But if you were a friend of the user and an avid visitor of Twitter, you would be able to paint a picture of that same user from reading the few lines he or she types out everyday on what he or she is doing.
But the question is: is Twitter a community or not? My answer is yes simply because the very first thing I saw when I visited Twitter was the SXSW button on the Featured User box on the right-hand corner. SXSW stands for South by Southwest and it is a major event in The States because it is not only a festival for music and film but it also hosts interactive conferences for creators and their audience.
If you decide to click on SXSW the user, the very first thing you will notice is that the user has over 5000 friends on its list. These are all fans of the event and just like me they are following the SXSW page to get event updates. Which is perfect timing, might I add, because SXSW is happening from 9th till the 18th of March.
Curiously enough, as soon as I added SXSW to my own list, three other members off its list added me as a friend. Perhaps this goes in line with what was mentioned by Wellman and Gulia (1996) –the Net encourages the expansion of community networks. They made an example out of receiving unsolicited help from friends of a friend about an email virus. It can work the same way from me because now I have not only SXSW to read about what people are doing at the event but three other friends whose updates I can read from.
ReferencesAbout SXSW. Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://2007.sxsw.com/about/
Fernback, J., &, Thompson, B. (1995). Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure. Retrieved March 15, 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 15, 2007, from http://www.acm.org/%7Eccp/references/wellman/wellman.html
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