Get online

With new online tools and websites it has become easy to connect with others and to create and share your own ideas in words, pictures and videos.

We want to encourage people with arthritis to use these tools to enhance their lives and to raise awareness of arthritis.

Web 2.0 and social networking

Web 2.0 is a phrase used to describe the second 'interactive' phase of the world wide web and the tools that enable interaction to take place. Whereas websites were mostly one way channels of communication, now users are beginning to contribute content.

There are dozens of sites that allow people to join in and create communities (FaceBook, MySpace) and to publish their own words, photos and videos (FlickR, YouTube). See our list.

Where do I start?

If you have not already signed up for the forum on this website, we suggest you make this your first step. We have made the forum easy to use and it is a friendly and safe place to begin connecting with other people, with arthritis, online.

What next?

This really depends on your interests. Do you want to publish your creative work to the world or do you want to make friends? Are you interested in family history or environmental issues?

There are now sites for almost any interest. We have provided a list to some of the most popular ones here. We suggest you browse the sites and try a few out. They are usually free and you can unsubscribe if you want to.

How can Arthritis Care help?

• By providing a forum for online networkers (coming soon)
• You can create links to your activities in your forum profile
• We will feature the best activities on these pages
• Read our 'Guide to the Internet' (from Arthritis News)

How does Arthritis Care benefit?

• We would like you to create links to our website wherever you can
• We will shortly have special Arthritis Care 'badges' you can add to your website or page
• We would like you to raise awareness of Arthritis by writing and chatting about us whenever you can on the internet

Questions and comments

Use our community feedback form or better still join our Discussion Forum and visit the ' Web 2.0' discussion area. (coming soon)