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Hanging out at the virtual lounge

Get a hang of the Internet clubbing by plugging in, says SERISH NANISETTI

SPREADING SPACE Reach out to the world

Want advice, opinion, hitch up help, network, vent your rage against reservations, perhaps you want people to know more about you, maybe you want the world to hear your guitar riffs? Logon to the Internet and plug in to the fastest growing phenomenon where you can hang out, ladle out or consume advice: myspace.com, orkut.com, friendster.com, tagged.com and xanga.com are some of the sites.

A few clicks and cursors away, these pages are something like a blog married to personal pages and the diary that a world can read and listen to. What's more you can even share your expertise. Did your dog have a runny nose, get the advice and after the advice share it with others.

It is nothing like the Internet that you know where you blog, search, email, chat and are discovering Internet telephony. MySpace.com has racked in 73 million members in two years, Friendster has 27 million, Orkut has some 18 million and there are millions of others who are raving and ranting about the world in their own space.

A few weeks back Arjun Singh kicked the reservation ball and on the Internet people have been running with it in all directions. If you thought opinion is the monopoly of grey heads in newspaper and TV channels, you are wrong. Some of the opinion is as sharp as a rapier and can rip.

The virtual clubbing is evolving in ways too few people are able to understand, get a grasp of the music bit, you wouldn't know what the guys are doing with the photographs, hang onto the words of lounge mandarins and you wouldn't be knowing out the billing and cooing that's happening one click away.

Discover and be discovered is the tagline of one site and the users are discovering new ways of using this resource.

On Wednesday, The Independent did a do-it-yourself success story of Richard Archer and it quoted him as saying: "The computer is now the greatest punk rock instrument, you can record your music, mix it, master it, do your art work, host your website, distribute your record, and with MySpace, get your music heard by thousands." If MySpace.com is credited with creation of Arctic Monkey's rise, the Friendster.com let's you create your own radio station and share it with your network.

This kind of targeted networking is creating a buzz in the industry with the big daddies trying scratching their pates to figure out getting into the game edgewise.

But is it safe?

Is this safe for teenagers and children? Nothing is safe or bad by itself, it is how we use it that matters.

All the sites have moderators with western standards of morals, but virtual clubbing is nothing like a chatting or browsing that are difficult to track. If you sense trouble with your teenager or ward, just get him/her to show the thumbnails of pals. If there is a lot of skin or computer doodles, fly right off the handle.

On the other hand if the images are normal people, smile, pat and walk away from the computer. You are de-networked.

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