Many of us use Facebook as an online medium to socialize with friends and family, network, play games, etc. However, for some reason, it has become too routine and boring. We’re looking for something else we can be addicted to now. Before I come up with a list of interesting websites that you might want to check out (in a future post), here are 5 social websites in our past before the emergence of the “Facebook boom”. These are sites that many of us were addicted to at some point so before moving on to something else, why don’t we revisit them!
Second Life is a free 3D virtual world where users can socialize, connect and create using free voice and text chat.
A great thing about Secondlife is that it really is a virtual world. You can be whoever you want to be, make friends, buy houses, start businesses (actual income-earning businesses), start relationships, etc. Many real-life stories have come out of this social experience. E.g. marriages, millionaires, and even murder.
My personal experience with this though…I didn’t last an hour on this. I started experiencing simulation sickness after a few minutes so I had to give it up.
- IMVU:
IMVU is a social game and entertainment site where millions of people meet, chat, play games and have fun. You can dress up your avatar, shop, decorate your room, create your own personalized look, and connect with new people around the world.
IMVU is great fun for a while, but especially if you’re into SIMS. You get to create avatars and such, just like any other virtual online ‘worlds’. You can be whoever you want, buy clothes and houses, and even create/develop clothes and houses for people to buy.
IMVU is quite fun with friends or if you want to meet new people. Although it does a lot to convince you to spend real money (e.g. your username will always have a ‘guest_’ infront of it unless you PAY to remove it). It’s a smart way for them to earn some quick bucks because who in the world wants to be guest_username? As far as I know, there is no alternative option for this…you can’t use credits earned to pay for your username.
But if you develop items for the shop you can sell them and earn credits…and then you can sell them to other users or resellers. Secondlife’s first millionaire was (or is?) a developer at IMVU and also did a lot of reselling of credits.
Gaia Online is an online hangout, incorporating social networking, forums, gaming and a virtual world.
Although I’ve joined GaiaOnline, I never really took the time to check out its virtual world. It does have a very game-like feel to it. Its forum community is very impressive and they have one of the largest bulletin board community online.
Free live video chat and 10-way cam to cam video calls. Join Paltalk to start chatting with millions of members today.
Paltalk was one of my very early online addictions (year 2005), although it was for a very brief period of time. I had to stop using it because China had actually added it to their list of blocked sites together with Blogger, Wikipedia, etc. It’s actually a lot like Yahoo Chatrooms (back in the 1990s) where you login, choose a chatroom and make friends with people who share common interests.
You get to view webcams from users who have this enabled, host chatrooms, share songs, language exchange, etc. My personal experience with it…it makes a lot more sense than the current Yahoo Chatrooms available in Yahoo Messenger. Yahoo Chatrooms are always full of spammers and no offense but it’s true: Arabic writing in ENGLISH rooms…very annoying.
I don’t know what Paltalk is like these days but I sure hope they’ve got a good spam filter.
100% FREE Dating Service, Free Photo Personals, Chat, Messaging, Singles, forums etc.
I’m not a member of POF, but a few years ago I did help someone create an account there and I was able to browse through. Today, POF is still free but not for everyone. They’ve taken a lot of measures to block spam and filter out potential scammers. They have decided to do this by only allowing members from first-world countries to register on their website.
Related posts:
WYSIWYG! I'm a simple person trying to live the simplest life possible - it seems to be the most difficult thing to achieve! I'm an internet enthusiast and I've been a webmaster since early 2007. I like: blogging, developing sites using open source software, social media, computer games, '80s music, comedy & horror, animals, crunching on M&Ms peanut and Smarties!
But they forgotten smeet, too. It is also a 3d chat with social games. so check it out
Thanks for sharing the link!