For the tutorial this week, I was required to join an online community. I chose to join the couchsurfing community. This is a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit. It is a very clever idea I though. The site provides a forum for people to meet other in whatever location they may be traveling to. In particular it would be ideal for those people who were traveling alone as it would save them having a very lonely time in some places. The concept is based on good will. You stay at someone's house for free, they show you around their town or tell you what to see and in return you may do something helpful for them eg cook a meal for them or do some gardening, help with the dishes.
The beauty of this concept is that the travellers get to experience the host's town or city from a local persective and not as a tourist. What a visitor experiences is only a snap shot of what it is like to be in that community; their visit may be taylored to showcase the more interesting aspects of the host's life and therefore the visitor may not truely experience the routines of everyday life in the community.
Discussion Groups are formed amongst the members who have similar interests. Here is a topic which is close to my heart. This is an exerpt from one of the discussions.....
"The people of this group realized that TV is an absolutely unnecessary part of life. We see much better alternatives what we can do instead of sitting hours of hours in front of a coloured window" :)
"To get rid of the world of media and cultural opinion-leaders is like a step in a different, magic world.
It´s like a step back to reality. The time of illusions is over."
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