Keyword: Community

Community is one of the greatest phenomena that has developed with humanity. It allows people to connect with each other and to create a mutual environments, shared feelings, and unified goals and structure. It allows people to unify and feel wanted within the community. These are all good things.

There is a total of nine definitions on Dictionary.com!

1.	a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.

2.	a locality inhabited by such a group.

3.	a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usually prec. by the): the business community; the community of scholars.

4.	a group of associated nations sharing common interests or a common heritage: the community of Western Europe.

5.	Ecclesiastical. a group of men or women leading a common life according to a rule.

6.	Ecology. an assemblage of interacting populations occupying a given area.

7.	joint possession, enjoyment, liability, etc.: community of property.

8.	similar character; agreement; identity: community of interests.

9.	the community, the public; society: the needs of the community.

Yikes!

Well, the community that interests me the most isn't really defined, at least in detail, above. It's a new type of community, and it's one that has seemed out of mass communications: it's the internet community. Whether its their own particular humor, style, or fads, the community of the internet is massive and growing. And it's incredibly diverse, and interesting!

There is a community on the internet for any type of interest, any type of group. If you like cooking, there's hundreds of communities for that. If you love watching Firefly, there's dozens of communities for that. If you attended a community college in rural West Virginia, guess what? There may be a few online communities for that.

But, is there a community for people who cannot help but express their undying love of chewing ice? Well, there's a community for that, too.

Thanks to the World Wide Web, you can literally find a community for any type of activity, interest, hobby, music, movie, book, area, restaurant, brand of toothpaste... it doesn't matter! These new communities are always looking for new members, and it's a great time to explore the web and find these interesting spots.

So... Thanks, Internet.

Signed,
People who love communities.

Matt Richards
COMM 203