Online Communities, Online Identity and Social Networking Cites

Last we were talking about communities (online and offline) and tried to find the right definition but we COULDN”T because there was no one definition for it. Obviously people sharing some common interest (music, sport, religion), living in the same town, coming from the same ethnic background can form a community. BUT of you have something in common with other people it does not automatically mean that you are part of their community. (For ex. You can live in Salisbury and love Madonna but not be the part of the Salisbury Madonna fan club, if there is any)
So this is why it’s hard to define what community is. But now I will rather focus on online communities, identities and the networking cites. As I was doing research for our online identity group project I found that there are differences between Myspace users and Facebook users.
But first I want to quickly write down who we are going on with the group project. Now we decided who will do what. We started to edit the wiki, put our pictures up. To be honest I have troubles with editing the wiki but hopefully I will get used to that as well:P
I will have a look at different social network sites and try to find out the success of these sites, who they aim, why people joining these sites etc. I will also try to find some differences between networking sites (like Facebook and Myspace) and why people choose to use one specific site and what this choice tells about their identity. I will have a look at case studies (if I find) when online identity played a key role is changing someone’s life.

So far I can say that people who are using Myspace are more likely to put on 'online identities'. As usually people go on Myspace to create new friendships so they 'glorify' they profiles so people visiting their sites will add them. While Facebook users usually have their offline community, identity that is usually the same as their online one. They bring their already existing communities online so they can talk, share picture after school, when they are not together. Of course there are exceptions!! And I will also have a look at different case studies.