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Online world gaining in importance
The value of the online world is becoming just as important as the real world, according to the sixth annual Digital Future Project and survey about the impact of the Internet.Researchers at the USC-Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future found that 43 per cent of internet users maintain that they "feel as strongly" about their virtual community as their real-world community.
Americans make interactions online that cross into a real life relationship at a rate of 1.6 new friends a year.
"More than a decade after the portals of the Worldwide Web opened to the public, we are now witnessing the true emergence of the internet as the powerful personal and social phenomenon we knew it would become," said Jeffrey I. Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future.
He added that 2006 was the year that new directions for the internet are growing fast and the online community is what Americans use to "touch the world".
The survey also found that blogs, personal websites, and online communities were the main drivers behind an evolving instrument for personal engagement.
Online Advertising news posted on 30 November 2006
