Msn Messenger

Msn messenger is a real time chat hosted by Microsoft which allows people to chat instantly through text, video conferencing, audio and sending SMS. “Msn Messenger now has more than 155 million users who collectively exchange more than 2.5 billion instant messages every day.” (Converge! Media Ventures, Inc. 2005). User needs to register for Microsoft passport in order to start using Msn Messenger. It is a community which allow people to socialize, share thoughts, make new friends through many of it’s interesting features. The objective of Msn Messenger is to maintain an already existence relationship, whether it is a distance or non-distance relationship but at the same time, getting to know new friends. It works like a telephone in our daily life, just that it has been transform to be online and exciting features were added which allows people to keep in touch with each other in a more exciting ways. Besides that, Msn messenger have consequence updates to improve their service and features from time to time. Besides the traditional one to one chat, now people can even invite a few of their friends to chat together. It is rather convenient, time and money saving running a discussion or conversation through Msn Messenger.

I have been using Msn messenger for more than three years now and have experience the improvement of service and features of Msn messenger. Through my own experience and observation, I find it very convenience and I enjoy using it to keep in touch and exchange information in an effective and efficient way. Msn messenger can be connected by anyone with an internet connection, which means that user do not have to download the software when they are using a connection somewhere else without Msn messenger installed. Easy access to Msn Web messenger will allow the user to use Msn messenger. Three are also many exciting features that I find useful while using it.

I will say that it is a small private community with friends’ network who already knew each other in the real world.

Community is defined as “a group of people with common characteristic or interest living together within a large society” (George, L). Therefore, I will agree that Msn Messenger is a community as it includes a group of people who share common interest and conversation. It is a place where people will hang out to socialize, just as a group of friend going out to have a drink. It is only the location which is different; people can now socialize through Msn messenger without physically meeting up. People will become more integrated in Msn Messenger when time passes as it create a sense of belongings and a good source of information.

I would say that Msn Messenger is a real community as I feel it really gave me the feeling of real while using it. There are a few points that I would like to analyze in order to support my view.

When we talk about real community Vs Virtual community, one thing that keep people arguing will be the existence of physical appearance. Well, let’s look at it in the real world. Telecommunication is getting advance nowadays. Most of the time, people in the real world communicate through telephones or mobile phones more than talking to each other face to face. This is because it is convenience, people do not have to travel from one place to another to meet up with a person to start a conversation or discussion. However, we can not say that communication through telephone, which has no physical existence, is not real. There are so many important decisions making through telephones in the real world, such as telephone banking, business deal etc. The same goes to Msn messenger, even though there are no physical existences, but the conversation or discussion still count. For instance I ask a friend in Msn messenger to transfer a file to me. Even though we did not meet up physically, but I did receive the file and after printed it out I can even touch it and make the document physically lying on my desk. Therefore, it is not only real but on top of that has create efficient and effectiveness in our real life.

Some people may argue that in a virtual community, expression of feeling is always a problem. There is no way that we can express our feeling online, through text or smiley icons. It is also some sort of link to physical existence, for example we can not hug each other, or touch each other online. Well, I have to admit that we can not do all that in Msn messenger besides seeing each other through webcam. But do we need that to define whether it is a real community? There is always something that we can not do without physical existence, just like talking on the telephone. But there is also something that we can do without physical existence, which sometimes hard to do with physical existence, for instance apologies. Some people tend to take apologies very serious and there are always time that we feel uneasy if we have to apologies in front of someone. Therefore, we choose to apologies through telephone or live chats on the internet to make the situation more comfortable for others and for ourselves. Let me give an example, I am not very sure about the western cultures, but in my cultures, we tend to practice not to express our feeling in the real life, especially feeling of care and love towards parents. We have a habit to keep our feeling in our heart. Expressing it out in the public or face to face with make the environment very uncomfortable. But through Msn Messenger, I can always tell my parents how much I love them and care about them. Nettleton has indicated that Internet communication also provide vital social support for people who are isolated through illness or other circumstances. (Woolgal, 2002)I think that there is always plus and minus in a virtual community and a real community. Therefore,

Trust and identity is always an on-going argument in virtual community. Since Msn messenger is a network of friends that already exist in the real world, I think that trust issue has not much impact on it. However, if people use Msn Messenger to get to know new friends, then it will become an issue that we have to concern. For me, I think that trust in an online community really depend on an individual’s attitude towards the community. It is the people itself that destroy the trust among the community. Therefore it is not the community’s fault if is there is such issue. We can not say that this virtual community is not real just because trust does not exist in you. It is the people that should be blame as everything is created and destroyed by human. It is people itself who misuse it. In my Msn Messenger, I only keep in touch with people who I already knew in the real world, it works like an extension of friendship from the real world. Therefore, I will not have doubt of whether to trust what the person is saying.

In conclusion, I would say that to define a community of whether it is real really depend on how a people uses it and behave. If everyone else is using it in a proper way, it will eventually be real. However, not many people have realized this fact; they keep blaming for their unreal or unsecured feelings towards the virtual community. I will say that Msn Messenger is a real community, at least to me as I trust everyone else who is in my list and I know they trust me. If I am the only person to be honest in the virtual community, it is not enough to make it real, if we say community, it means that many individuals are involves, therefore all this individuals in the virtual community needs to cooperate and work together to make it real. Real or virtual? It really depends on individuals.

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