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Connecting to the net is more than hardware and software. It is a matter of people connecting to a culture inside of which are numerous communities. Howard Rheingold has been a leading voice in asking that we try to understand the nature of our communications via computer networks, and that we consider the possibilities and limitations in forming such communities. In this article, he explains how for him and many others the net has become that "great good place" which, like a neighborhood bar, is a place for us to go to meet people and talk about our lives.
Note: Howard wrote the original version of this article for the Whole Earth Review in 1988. Four years later, he updated the article because so much had changed and he called it "A Slice of Life in My Virtual Community." It was published recently in "Global Networks:Computers and International Communication," Linda Harasim, ed., MIT Press, 1993. Portions of that article also appear in his new book,
The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier.
The version that appears in GNN Magazine is adapted from the "Slice of Life" article.
the full original on the WELL.