I don’t normally read xkcd very much (I frankly don’t get what’s so funny about it, Achewood and Cat & Girl are still more my speed), but I did really like this recent map of online communities. Click on the thumbnail above for the full image.

These things serve as funny equivalents of, say, the AFI’s “Top 100 Romantic Comedies Ever” lists. That is, they’re more fun to talk about than to take seriously — and given that xkcd’s a comic, well, duh. But, still, I found notable a few weirdnesses:

• I’m surprised at how many I’d never heard of before — Piczo? Broadcaster? Cyworld?
• I debate whether or not “Myspace Bands” should border the “Sea of Culture.”
• For all the work we do on MMOGs in our research group, sometimes I forget that stuff like Yahoo! Games is still out there and enormous.
• Loved the “Ocean of Subculture” and wonder if there are any “NOOOOOOO” and “Snape Killed Dumbledore” sunken islands around there.
• Speaking of sunken lands, poor USENET. I miss it so.
• The positioning of the “icy north” scares me a little, like we’re being prepared for an invasion by the barbarians of the north.

Yeah, I’m definitely overanalyzing a comic, but whatever. If I was to put myself on the map, I’d probably be somewhere just east of the Straits of Web 2.0 and west of Del.Icio.Us Island.

I might go diving for more USENET lost treasures later.