The Internet is a Community…Well, sort of.

Cultivating connections and organizing them into meaningful communities can do a lot for the Internet.

In many ways the Internet has turned into one of the largest communities in the history of the world. It serves as a meeting place, an information hub, an entertainment device and a business avenue. Since its inception, our Internet has created so many connections, many of which reach across oceans, over mountains and across continents. However, the Internet is lacking in two very important areas: organization and meaning.

Sure, you can find almost anything online in a matter of seconds and the Internet can connect you to someone half a world away, but until now this great tool has failed to provide us with a real structure to organize our connections and grow true online communities on a grand scale.

The connections we form online tend to be a part of our offline social networks. These networks might include co-workers, classmates, family members, friends, acquaintances, celebrities or your local milkman. Services such as Google+ have begun to catch on to the user need for structure, providing a system for organizing those connections into circles that can be extremely helpful in expediting and optimizing communication within those circles.

It’s still not enough.

Although circles are a truer version of what life is like in the real world, we all know that life is far more complicated than just designating a friend as part of your “school” circle or your “arch nemesis” circle. That’s still not a community.

A community is not just a place where you can communicate with other specific users, it’s a place where you can organize, collaborate, promote, schedule or whatever else you need to do. Yes, you can do a lot of this simply by messaging certain groups of people, but truly mobilizing those people can be difficult without the necessary tools, especially if not all of the people in a group live near one another. It’s difficult to form and maintain meaningful connections when online communication has made communication so much less personal.

To form and maintain meaningful connections we need something more out of the Internet. Meaningful connections take time to develop and generally spring from common interests. It is such meaningful connections that are the most fundamental components of a true community.

What we need is a personal space that provides us with the tools to organize our own communities and grow rewarding, even life-altering relationships. We need something organic and OurPangea will provide a user experience that is powered by the context of each relationship we have. On OurPangea users will find that they will have unprecedented freedom to define, curate and evolve each relationship they have with more meaning than before. These features overcome the gray areas that exist in current networks and context will give users more accurate insight into how each of their relationships play unique, key roles in the structure and function of their real world communities.

The Internet needs a new kind of network and OurPangea, the Community Network, is poised to change the way we see and interact with our world.

What Are Social Networks Built To Do?

Social networks are built to connect us. The most defining aspect of the social network is the role they play as a tool for bringing people together. Social networks allow us to connect with friends, family, and peers. Social networks are built to connect us. From me to you.

Daily, we are mesmerized by our droning news feeds with new update after new update. Social networks provide an ever mounting stream of the things people we’ve friended have done and are doing. At first these networks were pure in their cause. They were there to help us connect with each other. Today, it’s hard to keep track of what these networks are doing. At times we may even wonder what we’re doing on them.

Social networks have been around for a while and like many older things, they have been around long enough to stray away from their original purpose. What made them great is no longer what they rely on. Social networks have evolved and transformed far beyond their original intentions.

But for all of their transformations, pivots, and evolutions what they fundamentally are is still their core service: as connecters.

Connection is important, but it is not the only purpose social media outlets should serve. Connection enables interaction but in and of itself is not enough. Knowing the right people is important, but doing things with them is what makes a difference.

For all social networks are and have become there is still so much more.