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Canadian Jenny Bullough calls her blog The Newbie: The adventures of a wide-eyed innocent in the digital world. Since I’m a bit of a newbie to the blogosphere myself, I was interested to read Jenny’s take on Redefining Friendship.

She writes: “I'm stoked to be going shopping in Second Life twice in the next few days -- tonight for skins, and Monday with the After a Fashion gang for bikinis. Not just because I've been hankering for a new skin, and a bikini to properly show it off, but because it gives me a chance to socialize with my dear friends Eden and Kate.”

If you’ve been living under a rock like me and haven’t signed on or even heard about it yet, Second Life (SL) is a 3-D virtual world that has enticed more than 7 million members from around the globe since it was created in late 2006...

Jenny points out that social media (all the different tools on the web that enable people to converse and share information and experiences with each other one another---like forums, message boards, email, file-sharing, wikis, and weblogs) have redefined the essence of friendship for her and many other women. “To me, shopping in SL with my After a Fashion friends is the same as shopping in real life (except that I'm much less likely to do it in real life because I hate trying on clothes),” she wrote.

Jenny grew up on a commune in Central Ontario, which was then devoid of running water and electricity; I grew up in New York City with easy access to telephones and electric typewriters. But both our friendships have been radically altered by the advent of the internet. Technology has given women a new tool to meet new friends from around the world and to nurture the relationships they make in real-life.