An Introduction to Halka.com

The website Halka has a new spin on social media. Rather than focusing on networking, "likes," online games, and other well-known activities, the emphasis on Halka is creating empathy among the site's users.

Halka has the feel of a wiki, with user-contributed content and links which can lead you from one story to another. People share their stories and can tag the stories with keywords related to the topic, and by clicking on the keywords, you can read a variety of autobiographical notes shared by different users. In a way, the site is like a collaborative memoir because as you click around on the site, you find connections between the experiences different people have shared.

The main idea of the site is building empathy. When you read a story someone has shared, the site prompts you to answer questions about the emotions you feel that the writer is expressing.

It will be interesting to see how Halka develops over time as it restores some of the sharing and connections with "strangers" all over the world that intrigued many of us when we first found our way to the internet years ago.