Online Communities – Trends and Threats!

Facebook is looking very slow these days! It could be a slight downfall as human interests change frequently! If something’s thrown quickly against FB it might click!

One more reason: Compared to Indian visitors (4,063,300) there are far more users in western countries like US (83,558,820) and UK (20,247,300). And all these majority users are busier during August to Pre-December! Approaching deadlines of projects before Christmas… And hence, may get less time for hanky dolly! I have seen significant fall in status updates, useless messages like “I m cleaning my room today!” etc. Facebook is on rank 31 in best 50 sites of 2009! Guess who is on top… Flickr.com.

Facebook is looking very slow these days! It could be a slight downfall as human interests change frequently! If something’s thrown quickly against FB it might click to the users and can go places!

One more reason is that compared to Indian visitors (4,063,300) there are far more users in western countries like US (83,558,820) and UK (20,247,300). And all these majority users are busier during August to Pre-December! Approaching deadlines of projects before Christmas… And hence, may get less time for hanky dolly! I have seen significant fall in status updates, useless messages like “I m cleaning my room today!” etc. Facebook is on rank 31 in best 50 sites of 2009! Guess who is on top?… Flickr.com. Twitter is way on top in this ranking compared to Facebook.

Facebook activities also are more of an imitation of friends or contacts. Well, it is all about following each other and forming a community! But still a thin line is surfacing between imitation and following. Offline (a new word for the “real world”) friends have got new place to meet and share things, Facebook! Friends, people in relation, husband & wife, mom-dad, siblings – all these relations are getting a new dimension through this online world of sharing and caring! Unknowingly, a lot is happening around those tangible comments, pictures and connections! A new sense of jealousy, rivalry, imitation and unhealthy competition is spreading. Some are competing for more friends on the list, some are jealous of their friend’s ability to exploit FB apps to show new creations and there are some who just follow the activities because their friends are doing it!

We still are not aware of the time bomb we are sitting on! These micro and macro level oscillations of emotions, rivalry and imitations are becoming the strength of the online world. The amount of information in various forms they hold, the accumulation will create a dangerous diagram of our lifestyles. Being with Google, they have your emails through GMail, your documents through Google Docs, your location and map activities through Google Maps, your schedules through Google Calendar, your sites through Google Site and many more. A common user may not realize this fact but going ahead with all these community sites and live update of your lives will take a certain level of control on your activities!

It will be a bit early to say anything more, and rather we just keep this thought in mind while embracing anything online!

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