Navigate the Perilous World of Online Communities… With a Map?

Description

They say nowadays you have less in common with your next-door neighbour than someone living thousands of miles away who shares your interests and hangs out in the same online places that you inhabit.

Back in 2007, XKCD created a fantastic map of some of those online dwelling places, including names that still shine bright, such as the Gulf of YouTube, Wikipedia Island, and Deviant Art plus other fading stars like Friendster, Second Life and AOL.

Charting such perilous, changing seas requires constant vigilance, and as reported by TechCrunch, the XKCD cartographers have been busy updating their maps, releasing an all new view of the globe as it appears here in 2010. Dominated by the lands of Facebook, Twitter and yes, Farmville(!) the world is a very different place three years on, and is even more dangerous.

For the first time the Charred Wasteland of Abandoned Social Networks, the plains of People You Can’t Unfriend and the Great Firewall (near China) have been carefully mapped in full colour to ensure you know where you’re headed.

The only question, which lands will shrink, and which mountains will rise in the next three years?