It's too soon to tell, yet (Score 2)

The hand wringing over a failure of community-building seems a bit premature.

Take a moment to think about the numbers: The public-access version of the Internet has been in existence for approximately fifteen years. The bulk of the users online came onboard approximately five years ago. At present, a little over 40% of the US has gone online, with a worldwide average of 10-15%.

Even with that rather small sample of humans on the globe interacting daily online, an amazing variety of groups and networks has already sprung up, enhancing relationships offline as well. The true potential lies in getting the remaining folk online to try it out, explore and really show us what can be done!

Sincerely, Kathryn Aegis