Do online acquaintences count like real ones?

As you may have guessed, I have several  "online friends".  Most of them I call friends because I do not want to be bothered spelling out the word acquaintance.   Since AOL automatically adds any one who emails me to  my address book, I have a very full address book.  I also have a category that is marked "If I croak" and Bret has instructions that if I do suddenly cease to exist, he is to notify these 2 people.  Only two.  The first one will no doubt tell anyone who will listen and she knows which chat rooms I go to so that aspect will be covered.  The other one will get his "flushing finger" warmed up since I want to be buried at sea and that is the shortest, most direct route I know.  Just having a little trouble getting him to wait until after I am "gone."  And this, my friends, brings me to the crux of my missive today.
As you know, I sell on eBay.  eBay has chat rooms and a year or so I went to visit for the simple reason that on every post I make there is a link to my listings.  Good business sense, I thought.  Of course after a period of time I got to know people.  Some more than others.  One little gal in Florida and I were working on our html skills and the room we were in got very upset with us so we moved to another more liberal room.  The point here is we started emailing outside the chat room and are very good friends to this day.  I send her cookies and she eats them.  She in turn sends me little tokens.  I am as close to her as if she lived next door.  But I have never met her. 
A couple of months back I noticed that one of the regulars was not popping in at all.  So I mentioned it.  No response.  I mentioned it several more times and then let it go.  Then someone else mentioned it.  Two months!  Then came the announcement.  Seems the guy had "passed".  How sad that no one noticed he was gone for two months!  Had this group been here in my circle of friends, his absence would have no doubt been noticed right away, but the Internet is a very big, fickle place.  Friendships are made easily and just as quickly dissipate.  Yesterday's news, so to speak.  Had he been in my "real" world I would no doubt have at  the very least sent a card. 
There are many in my online address book that I hear from or contact on rare occasions.  Only these two hold special meaning for me. Now, I can not help but feel these friendships are as meaningful as if they were right here beside me.  Am I wrong?  Do we need flesh and blood contact to connect with people?  This Internet is a wonderful place if we use it correctly.  Am I doing that?  I have several friends who think I spend too much time on the computer, but it is what I do. 
I think that I am as close to Amy as any of my kids.  I would like to bring her to Colorado and take care of her.  Teach her things she needs to know to get by in this life, like proper nutrition.  ;) And my other friend and confidante knows me as well as anyone and way better than most.  He can see past my facade to the real me and point out my faulty thinking.  How he does that I will never know, but he is the first man I have ever "not met" that can do that.
I guess what I am really asking here is why we call it "passed" or "gone" when it is really "died"?  And if someone dies that I have never really known, do I still "know" them?  I realize that I was never close to Dan, but I still feel a twinge of sadness.  And I know if anything happened to my Amy or Oscar  I would be inconsolable.  Does that make me abnormal?  I think not.  Life is full of relationships on every level and in every degree.  My online friends are just as important to me as my real world friends.  So, maybe I am abnormal and maybe I am not.  Time will tell.
In the meantime I will hold on to the online connections and trust that they will be holding on to me.  And some day, I am sure, I will see them.  And when that day comes I can toss the computer, but for the moment it is my connection and it is here to stay, as real and vibrant as the friends in town.  So to one I sign off "Mountain Momma"  and the other, "Bella".  I love you both.  Just never get to say it often enough.
And all you others out there reading this,  I love you, too.  Love is a well that never runs dry and the more you give away the more you get.  So start spreading it around!