From The Social Web To Real Life
The way in which individuals share intimate details, and perform tasks such as dating, shopping, and applying for jobs is much different than in previous generations. Now, one's preferences, opinions, and activities are routinely shared with a group of friends with whom they may or may not ever meet were it not for the social Web.
Many social websites use online social interaction to create a bridge to real life interaction. Relationships are formed between individuals via the internet and then become more personal through other forms of communication. An example of this type of interaction is found on eBay: with more than 94 million active users globally, eBay is the world's largest online marketplace, where anyone can buy and sell practically anything. This website allows individuals to sell items and other to bid on these items. At the end of the auction, the buyer pays the seller; the buyer then sends the purchased product to the winner of the auction. The relationship begins on the internet, but extends into real life interaction. Ways in eBay facilitates this interaction include Skype, a leading online communications service that enables people to communicate through voice or video online for free. eBay Inc. acquired Skype in 2005 and significantly expanded its customer base to more than 480 million registered users in nearly every country on earth. The end result of all eBay transactions is a seller providing the buyer with a product, most commonly via mail: web interaction ending in a real world exchange.
The relationship that is formed with eBay users is similar to the users of craigslist. Users place items that they want to sell on the website, and other users that are looking to purchase these items contact the seller. Craigslist is used to bring together individuals and organizations and connect them to the resources, tools, technology and ideas they need to effectively engage in community building and see the impact of their actions. This is done via email or over the telephone. The buyer and the seller form a meeting in which goods are exchanged for money. Without this type of website, the buyer would not know that the product was available by the seller. This type of website allows members of a physical community to network with the other members of their community to exchange goods and services.
The transaction from web to real life is seen on a macro scale most recently on dating websites, which are used to search and match other users. These websites allow members with a common interest, to find others with this same interest. Academics who have studied the industry believe that it and other forms of electronic communication such as e-mail and social networks are starting to have a significant effect on the ways in which people find love. Users are able to interact with one another and find if they have common interests. Many sites have been developed that target many different interest groups, and relationships form and develop using the internet. If the users decide that they share a mutual bond, they are able to interact via the telephone, and eventually in person. The relationship begins on the internet, but can lead to real life dating and eventually even marriage.
Read more about this topic: Social Web
Famous quotes containing the words from the, social, web, real and/or life:
“How did they meet? By chance, like everybody.... Where did they come from? From the nearest place. Where were they going? Do we know where we are going?”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)
“A commercial society whose members are essentially ascetic and indifferent in social ritual has to be provided with blueprints and specifications for evoking the right tone for every occasion.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill
together.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I’m not making light of prayers here, but of so-called school prayer, which bears as much resemblance to real spiritual experience as that freeze-dried astronaut food bears to a nice standing rib roast. From what I remember of praying in school, it was almost an insult to God, a rote exercise in moving your mouth while daydreaming or checking out the cutest boy in the seventh grade that was a far, far cry from soul-searching.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“... when you make it a moral necessity for the young to dabble in all the subjects that the books on the top shelf are written about, you kill two very large birds with one stone: you satisfy precious curiosities, and you make them believe that they know as much about life as people who really know something. If college boys are solemnly advised to listen to lectures on prostitution, they will listen; and who is to blame if some time, in a less moral moment, they profit by their information?”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)