In the Northern Spring of 2007, Randall Munroe from xkcd created the following map to represent the real estate value of online communities;
Interestingly, they created a new one in October of this year that looks like this;
You can see the incredible demise of MySpace and the rise of Facebook, Farmville and Twitter in the recent incarnation. I don’t even know what Happy Farm is!! Visit The Green Eyed Monster’s blog where you can click on the same image and use the magnifier to look at it closely. It’s very interesting, and something to use with our students. It’s something they will be able to relate to I’m sure.
Related Articles
- xkcd’s Updated Map of Online Communities (laughingsquid.com)
- Webcomic xkcd Maps Out the World of Online Communities (managingcommunities.com)
- XKCD’s Online Communities map, part 2 – the online world, visualized with loads of funny (boingboing.net)
Lucacept - intercepting the Web 
Happy Farm is a virtual world. Massively popular in China. It is very culturally and socially Chinese in the way it presents, the things people do etc., Think Second Life meets Farmville meets Chinese Theatre. It is very popular with rank-and-file citizens, a fun escape from social-norms. We have to remember that China has social web systems that service those behind the great firewall, and no less significant than the mirrors of the west. But as they are not in English, and we inhabit mostly US-centric spaces – few of us (me included) know much about them.
This is an interesting summary put into pictures of what we use in terms of social networking. I think the change in what communication outlet we use will continue to evolve as long as there are new services that grab our attention so far Facebook has knocked MySpace literally off the map. As you mentioned I think this could be used in the classroom to show students and how it represents the change in communication over a short period of time.
Hi Jenny!
I am Sarah, and I am in Dr.Strange’s EDM310 class at the University of South Alabama! This is probably the coolest blog post I have ever seen! I wouls never have imagined our online community to be that large. Thanks for sharing these images with us. Great and very interesting post!
Thanks Sarah. Probably the first comment I’ve had that suggests my blog is anywhere near cool! It made me smile. : )