0256: "Online Communities"

[stevekl]

Had to register to say: "Yay for Qwghlm!"

"me too"
I've been finally reading the Baroque Cycle while marooned away from computer, and it's been long enough since i've read cryptonomicon, and I'm lazy, so it's only just now that I googled qwghlm which brought me back to this thread.

Me 3. I just now registered on the basis of this one reference! Yay Qwghlm!

[Fat Tony]

I think in a corner there should be a boxed-zone showing that this is all an incredibly enlarged picture of a tiny, miniscule spot there.
The name of this collossal mass of land and water is Google.

[Upsilon]

I think in a corner there should be a boxed-zone showing that this is all an incredibly enlarged picture of a tiny, miniscule spot there.

The rest is porn.

[Fat Tony]

I think in a corner there should be a boxed-zone showing that this is all an incredibly enlarged picture of a tiny, miniscule spot there.

The rest is porn.

The name of this collossal mass of land and water is Google.

I find this series of quotes rather redundant =D

[EdgarJPublius]

I just noticed Qwghlm and the poster has been hanging above my computer since comicon (annotated to show the advance of facebook's frontlines against Myspace for navigational purposes.) (In strict contradiction to the maps warnign against navigational use )

reading through the thread I realize I'm not the first one to notice this bit of Stephensonia and I feel a little foolish for taking this long.

[loldongs]

srsly, guise, there are some major - MAJOR - mistakes on the online communities map. i thought about ordering it but i will not do so until it's properly updated.

4chan is completely missplaced on the map. it really belongs right in the sea of memes as it is the creator of almost all internet memes. instead, it is almost unnoticeably small and far from everything else.

the online communities map has great potential and it is a really really great idea but i think you should really update it (considering it was created in spring 2007)

oh and i think you missed large parts of the filesharing community

[mturyn]

I tried searching for this in this thread but didn't find it, so my apologies if this is an old question: are the multiple cyclic graphs around "The Wikipedia Project" a reference to the way the Caribbean looks in "Star Trek: First Contact" after the Borg suddenly had assimilated the Earthicans two centuries ago from then? (Oddly enough, I can't find an image of this on the web---a couple of references, but no image---suspicious.)

[Random832]

I tried searching for this in this thread but didn't find it, so my apologies if this is an old question: are the multiple cyclic graphs around "The Wikipedia Project" a reference to the way the Caribbean looks in "Star Trek: First Contact" after the Borg suddenly had assimilated the Earthicans two centuries ago from then? (Oddly enough, I can't find an image of this on the web---a couple of references, but no image---suspicious.)

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:E ... ilated.jpg

[Mach1ne]

I wonder how hard it would be to weed into normal speech phrases like "I'm from the internet." Also for some fun thought, if you could pick only one place to be "from" what would you say?

[中国老外]

I found XKCD yesterday through a story on the website of the NEW YORK TIMES! (yes, I know that's lame...)

I have read from the first to the 256th, without any ill effects. In fact, my A.D.D. and O.C.D. appreciate this strip...greatly...

However, I feel compelled (of course) to point out errors in "Online Communities" http://www.xkcd.com/256/. Obviously Americentric, this map, while humorous, is deeply misleading. The largest online communities are in CHINA. The largest is QQ, which has over 341,900,000 active members (some 600,000,000 registered), certainly [red] dwarfing anything else on the map. Beyond that, there are others that are web-based (sina.com is the largest of those), followed by many others with strange numerical names: 51.com, 56.com, 163.com...(looking for patterns in the randomness?).

I have shown some of the webcomics to friends who speak English, and they seem fairly amused. Chinese would be a good language for your site. Hundreds of millions of hits waiting to be had...

[Ranulfr]

I would have to say from zombie apoc. land. You cant say your from there until you walk into a house and immediately start setting up a zombie survival plan for that house.

[alex4d]

I don't think xkcd is the kind of strip where this specific comic would be updated.

It would make more sense to create a new comic show how things have changed, such as
- how Facebook has invaded and occupied 80% of Myspace
- Twitter, an artificial collection of floating islands, will soon join the Blogipelago and the Facebook peninsula
- the successful coup replacing the rulers of LJ with FriendFeed


@alex4d

[Math_Mage]

I have shown some of the webcomics to friends who speak English, and they seem fairly amused. Chinese would be a good language for your site. Hundreds of millions of hits waiting to be had...

But speaking as someone with a passing knowledge of Chinese, translation would be a b****.

ps. That's a neato four-character idiom. I would have done something stilted like 中国外国人. Time to go and meditate on the failings of high school language education...

[batcountry]

At the Saint Louis Science Center, in the section that is just for the interwebs, you'll find a display of this comic.

[Quillpaw]

After reading through the forum, I took a closer look at the map. Did anyone else notice Cory Doctorow's Balloon floating through the Blogipelago?

[Josephine]

After reading through the forum, I took a closer look at the map. Did anyone else notice Cory Doctorow's Balloon floating through the Blogipelago?

Yep. I'm hoping you noticed Stallman's airship in Wikipedia.

[Ubertakter]

I would like to see an updated version of this map. It would be interesting to see how things have changed. Perhaps it should look as if the communities went to war, with battle lines and such. I'm sure a few "rogue nations" have sprung up as well.

[Aetius]

I would like to see an updated version of this map. It would be interesting to see how things have changed. Perhaps it should look as if the communities went to war, with battle lines and such. I'm sure a few "rogue nations" have sprung up as well.

The armies of Facebook have been running unchecked over the plains of MySpace, burning and looting as they go.

[TheTedinator]

Randall really should make an updated version of this. Also, Google doesn't seem to have the presence it should. It should be far larger than yahoo or anything else, but all I see is their volcano fortress or whatever.

[Ephemeron]

Perhaps xkcd could be the intellectual south pole. Hence it's too far south to be shown on the map. Or so we'd like to think.

[Zoobadoo]

And somewhere on the seas of the communities, there is the pirate ship, anonymous.

[big_jesus]

saw this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKLKwP76 ... _embedded#

seems pretty derivative.

[guyy]

seems pretty derivative.

YEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH

But seriously, no. "Imaginary Map of X" is a joke not unique to XKCD.

[Sir Dan the Man]

I agree with the last few posts and I registered here so I could express my opinion on the matter.

I was just looking at the "Online Communities" map and realized that during the last three years of its existence, a lot has changed. The main thing is that MySpace is hardly as big now as it was then and certainly not bigger than Facebook. Friendster isn't even used anymore! (There's even an Onion video about it's "rediscovery") Who uses Xanga anymore? The Wikipedia Project, Blogipelago, and WoW are definitely bigger than three years ago.

I'm sure there are many more things that could be updated that I'm neither informed enough or clever enough to think of, but those are the ones that stood out to me. All I'm saying is that a three year anniversary update would be pretty awesome...

[Germankipp]

I say that XKCD just needs to redo the entire map, in the three years since it was post a lot has changed... an example being Myspace and Facebook, not to mention Pandora and WoW

[kyzoo]

This is great. Although now its been 3 years now. Id like to see this turned into a board game or something of the nature to show how it has changed. Anyone for a game of "online communities"?

Edit: I acknowledge this has been suggested before. ^_^

Kyzoo

[OMGLOLZORS]

Did anybody else here notice this map on The IT Crowd?

[Pallandozi]

Flowtown have done an updated version.

[Pfhorrest]

Flowtown have done an updated version.

Interesting, but lacking something from the original: the grouping of communities by the two axes of intellectual/practical and irl/online. By the original compass stars, they've got the Empire of Google way down on the intellectual south pole, while many people use Google services entirely for practical purposes (Google Maps is about as practical an app as I can think of). If anything Google should be some vast seafaring empire with colonies along the shores of all the different continents; or perhaps, just portray "trade routes" on the map as well, and have all of them lead back to Google's Volcano Fortress.

[scarletmanuka]

If anything Google should be some vast seafaring empire with colonies along the shores of all the different continents

Did you notice the half-dozen areas labelled "Google Information Gathering Outpost"?

Your other points are well taken, however.

[webheads]

Flowtown have done an updated version.

Nice update, like the "Former Kingdom of MySpace." The plate tectonics and continental drift of the web landscape make mapping CRAZY.

[907Code-G]

I have been telling people I'm from the internet since 2007, and I have yet to get anything but a puzzled stare in response, during which I give them my email address in the form of a qr code printed on a stack of business cards.

[rabidmuskrat]

Flowtown have done an updated version.

Am I blind, or is Reddit not on this?

[Tynach]

Flowtown have done an updated version.

Ok, so we have a 2010 version... But it doesn't have Google+ in it, and I'm curious where that fits in.

I'm the opposite of qualified for making an updated version, but I'm bumping this admittedly old thread in the hopes of perhaps sparking a project to update the map every few years.

[SerialTroll]

I stumbled across the old (2007) map and came here specifically to request that a 5 year update be made. I see I am not the only one.

I would truly love to see this redone for 2012 and perhaps a nice side by side. In 50 years, the internet will be a stable place. Right now, we are in the Wild West and I think it would be awesome to look back at how dramatic that change was.

Please, Randall, do this one! Please Please Please!

[Ephemeron]

Ok, so we have a 2010 version... But it doesn't have Google+ in it, and I'm curious where that fits in.

Simply, Google+ did not exist back then. It was just a twinkle in Google's eye.

I would truly love to see this redone for 2012 and perhaps a nice side by side. In 50 years, the internet will be a stable place. Right now, we are in the Wild West and I think it would be awesome to look back at how dramatic that change was.

He made another one in 2010. Have fun reading it.

[addams]

The Internet is a Huge place.
This is the only map I know of.

It needs a 'You Are Here.'
A 'You Are Here.' will not help.
Not really.

This is data that may be used to prove the Multiverse Theory.
I can be in one Reality, Real Life, and be in a different Reality, The Internet; All at the same time.

This map has been on my mind.
The Internet is worlds within worlds of its own.
Of course, it needs a map or several maps.

[Jofur]

I like what you have to say, Addams.
Indeed they would be interesting maps.