But is The Facebook a Virtual Community?

Although the debate seems like it's never-ending (what's a community, what's not a community, is this a virtual community, if so why, etc?), by looking through our three main course books (Jenny Preece's "Online Communities," Howard Rheingold's "The Virtual Community" and Nan Lin's "Social Capital") and assessing the ins and outs of Facebook I have concluded the following:

Facebook very much maintains virtual community-like features such as grouping by commonality, search functions, sending messages and so on. However the site falls short of actually reaching "virtual community status" because of a lack of truly sustainable computer-mediated communication. This, however, is not a bad thing.

Facebook "recommunitizes," restructures and reinvigorates our realistic community, which people have been saying needs a little jump start. It gives members a visualization of their community. And it gives some a new appreciation for the community in which they exists.

It is my belief that no one community (on or offline) will satisfy all human needs. Therefore it is necessary that we not only look at communities in relation to one another but also that we identify and evaluate that which make our communities richer. The Facebook is just that.