I'm a member of a quasi online community. I'm involved in Meetup.com. I've found this is a great tool to find others in the community who share similar interests.
I was invited to participate in Meetup.com initially because of my interest in photography. The site provides online interaction with the ability to post photographs, begin dialog through the discussion boards, and goes further by sending notices about when local meetings are going to be held, scheduling excursions as a group, and obtaining feedback from the group after events to rate the outings. In addition, the site also provides avenues to poll participants about other interests they might be interested in.
Since my initial invitation I have expanded my communication by also joining an outdoors adventure group. Events are scheduled by 2 or 3 people within the group and occur several time a month.
I enjoy this form of social networking much better than just interacting with others online. It is difficult still to believe what you see online. People often have a much different persona without the fear of personal interaction. There is a certain feeling of safety to some people when they are online. Perhaps it has something to do with not being judged by personal appearances, economic status, or occupation.
Although I like the thought of receiving information in email and online, I try to keep the amount of information I receive to a minimum. This way the emails I do receive still remain of interest. I have several email accounts and when signing up for certain programs I use one account which I don't care if I get spammed on. Again, I need a bit more than just the online interaction for now.
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