Part 4

Creating a group of contacts

Part four is about a creating a strategy to make friends and contacts on the Internet. There is a saying that goes, "It's not what you know, but, who you know that is important". This is doubly true in the environment of the Internet.

Creating a group of friends and contacts is essential in any situation. It requires a variety of learned social skills, but, we are also helped with many natural instincts that give us much emotional guidance.

Making friends and contacts on the Internet is equally important. However, this is a totally different experience from making friends and contacts in the real world of bricks and mortar. Firstly there is the question of choice. On the Internet there is a choice of millions and no learned behaviour or instinctive emtions offer any help with this problem of over choice.

There is also the question of trust. How is it possible to be able to trust an email correspondent on the Internet in the same way that it is possible to trust somebody in the real world where you can meet them face to face?

The unescapable reality is that making friends and contacts on the Internet requires a completely new set of attitudes and values. Not only will these attitudes and values be different, they will conflict with conventional standards of learned social behaviour and many natural emotional instincts.

Again, Game Theory can provide a suitable framework to help solve the problems.