Tutorial Six: the internet and online communities

This week we looked at a area of interest surrounding a personal occupation. We had to then search online for three communities that relate to this topic and and address questions and tasks.There is a huge range of online communities to cater for all sorts of people. No matter what your interest people use online communities to come together and share these interests and hobbies. I decided to look at online communities surronding people who love to travel. I looked primarily at travel blogs and reviews of places around the world. These websites are made by people who post blogs about different places so that people who are thinking about travelling there can go to these websites and find out information.
The three websites that I looked at were

http://www.travelblog.org/
http://www.travelpod.com/
http://www.igougo.com/

The travel blog is a collection of travel journals, diaries and photos from around the world. Anyone can start a free travel blog in which you can add unlimited photos, videos and blogs from around the world. You can also join up and participate in travel discussions by using the travelblog travel forum. The Travel Blog.

TravelPod is a free travel blog website that let's you chart your trips on a map, share unlimited photos and videos, and stay in touch while you travel. You can also participate in chat forums and exchange tips about travelling to certain places. You can explore travel destinations and take a guided tour of places via photos and what people have blogged. TravelPod 

IgoUgo Is a travel blog website that allows you to plan your next trip using their simple planning tool. You can browse reviews and photos from any destination and share travel reviews and photos of your own. You can also ask questions and talk with other travelers in their travel forums. The website also offers traveler's favourite journals, reviews and photos. You can also explore the IgoUgo community blog for the latest IgoUgo news and highlights. Another great thing about this website is that you can compare rates of flights, and hotels for your next trip. IgoUgo

The Travel blog: This website is very interactive. It is quite like Facebook in the way that it works as it enables people to add other members and share content with their contacts. The website is used in a way that people add information about themselves, such as interests and hobbies and they can share videos, photos, messages and comments with other members via their profile and network. Travel blog is a collection of tools so that travellers can write down a journal, send the address to family and friends, set up automatic mailing lists so that everytime you add a new entry to your list your friends get an automatic email. Also the theme is travel, the tools are designed to cope with you moving around, maps and flags are linked from each journal. Photos can be added to your blog if you have a digital camera. We encourage our members to link to useful sites about areas, to help out future travellers. Write reviews, guides, journals, add photos.

TravelPod: This website is also very interactive. This website lets you share your trips using your own online travel blog (also known as a travel diary, travel journal or travelogue). You can post travel blogs from previous trips or use TravelPod for your ongoing trips. By updating your travel blogs while you travel, you can share your adventures with everyone back home.  Everyone can also leave comments on your blog about their opinions surronding what you have posted.

IgoUgo: This website is also very interactive in my opinion. IgoUgo travel reviews and photos will spark your wanderlust and help you plan your next adventure and inspire you to share your own experiences. 540,000 travellers think IgoUgo is the best place to store and share their trip stories and pictures, building a library of honest opinions, tips, and experiences that you won’t find in any guidebook. To date, their travel community has contributed hundreds of thousands of reviews and photos of everything from cheap eats to luxury hotels in more than 9,000 destinations worldwide. You can also write reviews and upload photos so that you can share trip memories with friends, family and travel enthusiasts.


Because everyone can comment on these blogs there are some ethical issues that can arise. Lack of identity and accountability can arise because people can steal information from your blog and take it as their own. People may misuse the communities and post things that are offensive to other people. Other people may gain a delusional reliance on online communities and live their life online rather than in the 'real world.' Other people may be able to hack into your account and post items onto your blog so who is actually sustaining and managing the community.



Benefits from a geographical community allow people from your neighbourhood, suburb, village, town, city, nation or even the planet as a whole to come together and share ideas about their trips abroad. You are able to connect with people that you might not of known before and learn things about people that you previously did not know.

Online communities affect how we play, how we talk and how we interact with others. Because of this vitual world people sometimes forget how to interact in real life and become withdrawn and separate from people close to them. These communities lack face-to-face time with people, because they are communicating via the internet and a keyboard they are missing out on actually being able to see the person which typical communities in everyday life provide.