Online friends finally get to meet face-to-face

City's Facebook community invited to a picnic in a real park

EDMONTON - What will happen when a cluster of devoted Facebookers leave their computers in sleep mode for long enough to meet their "friends" in person?

Dozens of Edmontonians on the popular social-networking site will find out at Edmonton's first Reality Rally, Sunday afternoon at Rundle Park.

The Reality Rally could be described as an experiment to see how effective Facebook can be in building a real community out of an online community.

"It came out of a rant about how people seem to have a community online, but you can't get them out to anything social," explains Matthew Gardner, a graphic designer and one of the organizers.

Gardner and his friend Amanda McCrae set up a Facebook group dedicated to finding a way to get people together. More than 400 people joined the group.

From 50 to 200 people are expected to show up at the picnic. Musicians, artists, car aficionados and others are invited to bring their passions with them.

"Facebook is such a casual place," says Penny Chu, another organizer of the event. "I've been able to touch base with friends that I haven't seen forever.

"But if you're going to spend that much time in Facebook, put even half of that time outside Facebook and you're going to meet a lot of people."

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Read more on the Reality Rally and Facebookers' thoughts about it.

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