Oct 16, 2007
Who needs to travel when there's WAYN?
In England, a travel website called www.wayn.com (for "Where Are You Now") has scored a smashing success (8,000,000 members by wayn.com's count) by permitting users to make friends around the world without ever meeting them; you enter your identity and interests, select a country whose people you'd like to know, and then chat with them about what's going on in their neck of the woods. One lonely Australian living temporarily in England speaks about how much she values her contact with people in Brazil, with whom she chats upon returning home from work every night. Who needs actual friends in your own community? Or travel, for that matter?
The site is also useful, of course, for persons planning a trip to a particular destination, where they will find dozens of persons willing to at least converse electronically with WAYN users; if those confabs then create enough confidence, the people listed may agree to meet the other WAYN user for a drink upon their arrival in that country. Among WAYN's services is a department called "Meet people who will be in the same place as you."
There are persons listed for even the most remote and little-visited areas of the world. Going to far-off Bhutan? Click on Bhutan, and up pop photographs and vital statistics (but not the home addresses) of a number of people in Bhutan willing at least to converse electronically with a would-be foreign visitor.
Other services of WAYN? "Keep a log of your past, present and future travels." "Keep your friends informed of your whereabouts." "Share experiences, trip details, photos and journals." Though WAYN is obviously capable of being abused, a careful building of confidence through lengthy correspondence, references, and the like, can eventually lead to your knowing people in advance at the vacation destinations to which you're heading. You might want to take a look at it.
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The site is also useful, of course, for persons planning a trip to a particular destination, where they will find dozens of persons willing to at least converse electronically with WAYN users; if those confabs then create enough confidence, the people listed may agree to meet the other WAYN user for a drink upon their arrival in that country. Among WAYN's services is a department called "Meet people who will be in the same place as you."
There are persons listed for even the most remote and little-visited areas of the world. Going to far-off Bhutan? Click on Bhutan, and up pop photographs and vital statistics (but not the home addresses) of a number of people in Bhutan willing at least to converse electronically with a would-be foreign visitor.
Other services of WAYN? "Keep a log of your past, present and future travels." "Keep your friends informed of your whereabouts." "Share experiences, trip details, photos and journals." Though WAYN is obviously capable of being abused, a careful building of confidence through lengthy correspondence, references, and the like, can eventually lead to your knowing people in advance at the vacation destinations to which you're heading. You might want to take a look at it.
Write and read comments about this post.
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