Personally, I think that there's no equivalent to face-to-face interaction. First of all, talking to a person in the reality you are able to perceive non-verbal information. Indeed, it's well known that we get to know people much better by watching their body language. Secondly, it can be very dangerous to get acquainted online. There are many people who use the internet in order to find naive people and make use of them. Of course some of these people can do without internet but it's more likely to meet them on social networks than in the reality.