the bbc is reporting on a survey which sez our virtual friends are as important as our f2f friends. the survey from the center for the digital future found 43% of people involved in an online community felt ‘as strongly’ about their web community as their f2f ones. btw, this is the 6th year of the survey & only surveyed americans.

other findings:

20.3% took actions at least once a year in the offline world which related to their online community

56.6% login to their community at least once a day

70.4% say they interact with others in their community (i would love to see how they defined this considering our 90/9/1 ratio and the amount of lurkers in communities)

social activism thrives in the online world. 64.9% say they are involved now in causes that were new to them when they first went online. 43.7% say they participate more now in social activism since they started participating in their online community.

more people contribute to the net. 7.4% have a blog (up form 2.3% in 2003), 23.6% post photos online, 12.5% maintain their own website.

they made an avg of 4.6 friends online & 1.6 of those online friends they have met f2f

fyi, u can order the full report for U$500 (indiv use)