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My father has a habit of reading the New Yorker cartoons whenever he's at his parents' house in D.C.; he said he couldn't find humor like that anywhere else...so I introduced him to xkcd (yes, I know, but let's start with that and introduce him to dinosaur comics next). Now he and Mom want to know what's "new" on the Internet (don't laugh)...meaning, what cultural things have sprung up that lots of people my age know about? So I'm trying to draw up a list with concise (and, yeah, therefore not great) explanations; please comment with additions, if you can think of any. :) (They are good computer programmers and know about things like open-source software and eBay, and lots of Google things.)
--Livejournal and other sites: places where people keep "diaries" of a sort, in many circles mostly posting things they want their friends to read. These aren't totally worthless: there are livejournal communities with various interests, too; so I get a lot of use out of the mathematics community, for example. But comments often give rise to heated discussions in these communities.
--weblogs: the other kind, where people are essentially setting up some sort of column without an associated newspaper, and if they write well, people look at their sites. They can usually comment, so lots of heated discussions arise there, too.
--webcomics: people make comics for others' (usually) free entertainment, can make some money off of selling T-shirts etc. associated with a successful webcomic.
--fanfiction: people digest stories in whatever media and then decide they would be better writers, so they write their own stories about the same characters: these can't be published. The worst site I know for this is fanfiction.net, but there are better, more selective ones. Lots of people use fanfiction to create slash, though (guys paired with guys), and other romantic pairings that are not "canon," i.e. not part of the original work.
--facebook: no explanation required. Earlier things with some of its ideas are myspace, Ringo, classmates.com, and others.
--discussion forums: websites for things of all sorts, often linked from official websites, to which people go and comment on things related and unrelated. Many of these have moderators. Similarly, there are groups, to which people can subscribe.
--youtube: now bought by Google. People post short videos of anything and everything, especially if it's a live performance or is funny. (They know about this, though.)
--Livejournal and other sites: places where people keep "diaries" of a sort, in many circles mostly posting things they want their friends to read. These aren't totally worthless: there are livejournal communities with various interests, too; so I get a lot of use out of the mathematics community, for example. But comments often give rise to heated discussions in these communities.
--weblogs: the other kind, where people are essentially setting up some sort of column without an associated newspaper, and if they write well, people look at their sites. They can usually comment, so lots of heated discussions arise there, too.
--webcomics: people make comics for others' (usually) free entertainment, can make some money off of selling T-shirts etc. associated with a successful webcomic.
--fanfiction: people digest stories in whatever media and then decide they would be better writers, so they write their own stories about the same characters: these can't be published. The worst site I know for this is fanfiction.net, but there are better, more selective ones. Lots of people use fanfiction to create slash, though (guys paired with guys), and other romantic pairings that are not "canon," i.e. not part of the original work.
--facebook: no explanation required. Earlier things with some of its ideas are myspace, Ringo, classmates.com, and others.
--discussion forums: websites for things of all sorts, often linked from official websites, to which people go and comment on things related and unrelated. Many of these have moderators. Similarly, there are groups, to which people can subscribe.
--youtube: now bought by Google. People post short videos of anything and everything, especially if it's a live performance or is funny. (They know about this, though.)
