• Blogging * Chatting & E-Conferences * Community Projects Report Manual * Community Networking & Profiling Service * Discussion Forums * Emailing * IRC Chatting * Mailing Lists Help * Phone Conferencing * Scheduling Meetings * VCP Collab Worksites: these worksites include mailing lists, discussion forums, and much more as the central ways to work in VCP as well as gain access to information about VCP’s status and plans.

Chatting, instant messaging and blogging facilities have been at the core of the communication revolution that the Web has engendered. THL sees such capacities as being essential in the following contexts:

• Instant messaging can facilitate discussions across national boundaries, and especially with partners in the Tibetan and Himalayan regions, without incurring large phone bills; it is designed more for individual-to-individual communication * Audio/Video conferencing can serve as a fee-free substitute for long-distance phone calls. * Chat rooms can facilitate open online exchanges of serious issues; it is designed more for multiple participants to communicate, and to facilitate happenstance encounters based on an interest in a given chat room’s theme * “Blogging” facilitates the easy creation of a personal Web space for one’s reflections, while also allowing for others to comment on those reflections from outside * E-conference facilities, essentially applying a scheduled timetable to the use of chat room technology, can be used to facilitate online gatherings and formal conferences that otherwise could cost thousands of dollars and lost time in travel.