I was interviewed for this article in the L.A. Times on the wired suburb of Ladera Ranch, located in south Orange County. The article includes reports of community organizing and various types of local community interaction as a result of the neighborhood intranet. I love that they report that it is the local email list that is largely responsible for supporting local community – just like in Netville. Of course, being L.A., this is not your typical wired suburb, sounds like they have a dedicated staff of techies doing community building. In Ladera, It””s a Beautiful Day in the Intranet Neighborhood
Not all that long ago danah boyd was a student in my course on social networks – today she is page one in the Circuits section of the New York Times. Read all about her research on identity and social networks on Friendster.com. She is truly the expert on this topic Decoding the New Cues in Online Society.
I just finished listening to Barry Wellman on NPR (Barry was my dissertation supervisor in the day – see our many joint papers). The topic was cell phone number portability and the impact of mobile phones more generally on social relations. You can listen to the archine on National Public Radio (NPR) wbur OnPoint.