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The Jedi Master Speaks

No. 13

Communities

When these rules were first composed, number twelve…that what the Web does best is form groups…was not strictly true. In 1999, when these rules were first organized, there were no actual examples of group-formation sites. Groups were still being formed more or less accidentally, when people with similar interests participating in forums and bulletin boards exchanged email addresses, so they could also communicate more directly with one another. However, this was all very informal.

There were also a plethora of chat rooms erected. Some were general, some quite specific as to the nature of the discourse. Cell phones and text messaging enlarged the audience for real time communication even further. But, again, there was no formal organizing of the groups that naturally formed.

With the advent of MySpace and FaceBook, this has all changed. These sites…especially FaceBook…not only encourage their users to form groups, they also make it very simple to do so and do all the busy work for the participants, keeping track of who belongs, what was said, etc.

One big step remains to be taken…re-erecting the Tower of Babel. While there are free translation sites on the Web using software translation "engines" to do the work, none of them has taken the big step of integrating real time translation into chat rooms, email and other forms of communication. Once everyone on the planet can communicate with everyone else using his or her own language both to compose and to read messages, then the group formation process will be taken to its logical conclusion.

Revolution anyone?

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If you have comments or suggestions for Willy, you can contact him at:
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