Digital Community:

The Age of Technology and the Social Network

By Brad King
November 2004

Part I: Generation Connect

It's a cool (relatively speaking) summer night here in Austin, Texas, where I'm writing this introduction. I'm sitting outside on my back porch under the dying light of my Tikki torches. I can do this because the ancient IBM Thinkpad 600E I'm using can latch on to the 802.11g wireless Internet connection covering--and reaching out of--my home. It's helpful to have my PalmOne Treo 600 smart phone sitting on my lawn chair's plastic green arm, ready to alert me whenever someone from work sends me an email, a friend text messages me, or my dad wants to call. For good measure, my Treo lets me gather material from my work computer, where I've stored some data for this introduction.

It's an enjoyable scene, writing as the sun goes down. Eventually, though, my Thinkpad battery will run down, and I'll be forced back indoors. However, I have a My Yahoo account, where I can upload my latest writing, giving me access to this piece no matter what computer I'm using. That's good, because I'm going to retire to my writing study in just a bit, and fire up my HP Windows Media Center.[1] I feel badly about using this supercharged desktop just to write, because it's my home's entertainment hub. My Time Warner cable connection and my Road Runner high-speed cable modem runs through it. It comes complete with DVD and CD capabilities--both playback and burning.[2] Heck, it's even got a remote control, giving me armchair access to every bit of entertainment I own.

Tonight, I'm likely going to load the first season of "Star Gate SG-1," resizing the window so I can write while Col. Jack O'Neill and his troops explore the galaxy. I like working at my PC because my favorite blogs are stored on my browser and I can easily click between my writing, O'Neill, and the world of news. But, most likely, I'll be moving to the cushy recliner, plugging the Thinkpad into the outlet so I can write, and using the Treo to check out news feeds from dozens of blogs and news wires and emailing the most interesting ones to my Hotmail account while I'm Instant Messaging my friends.[3]

I love the fact that I can move seamlessly throughout my world without ever really losing my connection to the Internet. In metropolitan areas across the United States, almost any place where people congregate will likely have to have wireless Internet access. It's quickly becoming a necessary selling point for coffee shops, retail stores, and restaurants.[4]

According to the latest usage figures from the Pew Internet & American Life project, 77 percent of the people between the ages of 13 and 29 use the Internet on a regular basis. What's more, people between the ages of 13 and 24 spend more time per week online (16.7 hours) than they do watching television (13.6 hours), listening to the radio (12.0 hours), or talking on the phone (7.7 hours).

Each day brings new innovations, new technologies, and new phenomena that stand ready to change the way we live now. The frustration people feel towards technology is maddening, just trying to keep up with all the latest gadgetry.[5] With all of that information floating around, it's no wonder that people have built up an inherent distrust of technology. It's the great unknown: a strange world of geeks and hackers who continue to roll out even more technology that renders what was unveiled yesterday obsolete. The distrust that blue-collar workers, middle managers, moms and pops, and even high powered executives feel grows each day as a group of social misfits releases something that threatens to make their skills obsolete. It’s apparent in their faces when I go back home to Appalachia.

Much of the animosity turned into glee around 2001 when the stock market took a header. Surely, these naysayers thought, the crash was the end of this technological revolution. Back to business as usual. It was a subtle glee, in the deep recesses of their minds: networked technology had become not something that would make our lives easier, but instead an omnipresent "thing" that seemed beyond comprehension.

It wasn't until 2003--after I moved from the Bay Area back to Austin--that I realized their glee wasn't over the abject failure of the dotcom revolution, it was a collective sigh of relief that for just a brief moment, the speeding innovations would slow enough for everyone to catch up. The reality is that many people haven't had the time to understand the impact of what this networked, digital world means. The fact is that our culture is evolving from a world where news and information came from a few well-known sources into a world where everyone can speak with everyone. For many people, that's just downright scary. When they look at teenagers running around with Internet-connected smart phones that can take pictures, record audio, and shoot short films, it's easy to understand their concerns. When they find the comfort of a human voice on the other end of a phone replaced by the automated call system, it's easy to understand their concerns.

When we become more interested in our gadgets than in how we can use those gadgets to interact with our world--well, it can be too much. It can't be very comforting for those who now look at the quantum leap our society is making from an analog world, in which people were mainly connected by standing in front of each other, into a digital world, in which time and proximity are no longer relevant to many social relationships.

Even Generation X (i.e., those born between 1961 and 1981), the first group to come of age in a world that can scarcely remember when it wasn't possible to connect with each other at will, sometimes appears lost when it comes to harnessing the power of networked, digital culture.

But the new generation--dubbed Generation Y--has adapted to digital life, often without realizing the implications of the tools they have at their disposal. They have never known a time when it wasn't possible to log on to a computer, search for information, send email, instant message friends, or just troll message boards. And while they aren't always aware of how the world has changed because of these networks that span from desktop to laptop to smart phone, it's obvious from watching how they interact with these technologies that the digital revolution is changing the way we live our lives.

I teach a college course called Writing for Online Publication at Southwestern University, and the first six weeks of the course touch on the history of networked culture and its effects on how we share information. I've now grown accustomed to blank stares as we walk through the Internet's early days, when hackers gamely unscrewed gigantic computers so they could figure out how they worked, then spent countless hours writing software code that would enable these computers to reach out to others just like them, scattered around the world, and finally devised hardware that was small enough--and simple enough--for the average person to have one of these machines in their home.[6]

Even for these young adults who have grown up in a world that has been networked since their birth, they've missed the subtleties of the networked age. They've missed the fact that the original mission of these odd hackers wasn't to create a mystifying techno-world ruled by the cyber-elite. It was just the opposite. These young men desperately wanted to build computers that would work for each of us, allowing us to connect with other people, and remove some of the drudgery of everyday life. None of these early hackers had any real notion of what would happen when--and if--regular people got their hands on these computers, but they were confident that these digital networks would change the ways we lived our lives.

While they may have missed the subtle genius of the early hackers who built the Internet, these college students rarely miss the inherent power of digital networks. There is always a light-bulb moment, when the class inherently understands that the digital networks on which they play are far more than just places to get music. They have come to expect to get their news and information from places other than the nightly news. They have come to expect to share information with their friends across peer-to-peer networks. They have come to expect to make friends that they will likely never meet in person.

Our world is in the midst of a transformation into digital life, where answers are never more than a Google search away and nearly everyone in the world is a simple click away. This always-on, always-everywhere connectivity has the power to change how we receive information, how we interact with our neighbors (and changes the definition of neighbor), and how we involve ourselves in the politics of our world.

 

Part II: Blogs

Today, people have greater access to information than they've ever had before. No longer are we confined to simply reading news from our local newspaper, listening to local radio, or even watching national news broadcasts. Blogs--those funky websites where regular Janes and Joes post information using free software applications--have done more to wrest control of information away from big media organizations, shifting to a more democratic landscape in which anyone with a computer and Internet connection can create news stories readily available to anyone else with a computer and an Internet connection.

These simple websites have become a virtual meeting ground for millions of people who want to go beyond headlines. Some of the best blogs have even managed to revive--and sometimes spur on--stories that the major media outlets have let die. Just hours after "60 Minutes II" used controversial documents in a news story that claimed President George W. Bush had shirked his National Guard duties during the Vietnam War, the blogsphere came alive with people who claimed the documents had to be forgeries because of the fonts used. Soon, television networks and newspapers were looking into those claims, eventually forcing CBS to admit that the documents may have indeed been forgeries.[7]

But more often than not, blogs have become a place where individuals--or collectives--post interesting news stories from the day, creating a digital water cooler where the news is read, discussed, and analyzed. Many have become can't-miss reads for people with specific interests. Slashdot is the place to go for anyone interested in technology. Others, like Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things, manage to give people a fairly decent overview of oddities of the digital world. Smart Mobs, meanwhile, somehow keeps up with all things mobile. The list of popular blogs is infinite, at least in the aspect that anyone can start a blog--or multiple blogs--and write to their heart’s content.

The most important aspect of blogs, though, isn't their ability to give anyone a voice. These websites have started to move beyond a simple repository of information, turning instead into the central hub for activism. When the United States Senate started work on the INDUCE Act, a piece of legislation that would have effectively made it illegal for some consumer electronics devices like the VCR from being manufactured without the approval of the Hollywood entertainment industry, a small group of people launched a blog, Downhill Battle, with the idea that they could gather people from around the United States to protest this action. Within days, the group signed up 5,000 citizens who agreed to make three phone calls on a designated day to congressmen affiliated with the bill. It was an ambitious undertaking, and one that would have been nearly impossible to coordinate without networked, digital technology. Yet, on September 14, 2004, congressional phone lines lit up throughout the day, and activists were apprised of which Senators had changed their votes (and thus should no longer be called).

It was an impressive display of how the blogsphere could be harnessed for more than just information exchange. While many in the news media initially dismissed blogs as a simple fad (including my former boss at Wired News, who insisted on multiple occasions that blogs were no more than glorified home pages), they have in fact usurped the primary role of newspapers in our society.[8] They can quickly inform, create communities, and inspire action.

This transition from traditional media to digitally networked media will only increase as more people come online, particularly as they come online at higher speeds. Fifty-one percent of the online U.S. population (63 million) now connects to the Internet using broadband, compared with forty-nine percent (61.3 million) who still use dial-up modems.[9] The numbers are much higher among younger users:

Age	Percent Using Broadband
18-20	59
2-11	58
24-34	55
12-17	53
21-24	53
35-49	51
50-54	49
55-64	46
65-99	34

This signals the beginning of a radical change, not only in how we receive our news and information, but in what we expect to be able to do once it becomes available. With high-speed connections, wireless networks, and personalized media devices that keep everyone linked into the Internet, there will soon be a proliferation of rich media spilling out across networks.

From a practical standpoint, this means that anyone can become a media organization--or, more likely, any small group can become a media organization--delivering video, audio, and written commentary that becomes instantly accessible to everyone. The only barrier to developing a following is creativity.

Generation Y and its successors are driving this news and media revolution. These are the groups that are forcing the adoption of broadband technologies because they have never known a time when they couldn't connect with one another. They are always looking for new ways to reach out, and when they do reach out, they want an answer quickly. For many, this youth-driven media environment is terrifying because when everyone has a voice--that means everyone has a voice. The 18-year-old voice becomes just as important as the 50-year-old voice. For those who have taken the time to climb the social and work ladders, watching a new generation cast aside well-worn traditions is frightening. It's daunting to believe that modern youth will not only help drive the adoption of these new technologies, but also have a strong say in how these networks develop.

"Not surprisingly, the younger set of adults, kids and teens, who grew up with PC technology, have the highest penetration of broadband access," Nielson/NetRatings Senior Director Marc Ryan said in the press release announcing the new broadband numbers. "The norm of waiting for a page to load has gone by the wayside through increased broadband access. With high-speed access in the majority, we're likely to see the richer, more interactive content become the standard."[10]

 

Part III: Social Networking

Blogging, though an important step forward in the distribution of media in a digital age, doesn't exist in a vacuum. The power of blogging means nothing unless it is distributed across vast networks of people who are linked together through a web of friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends. These social networks, as they are called, have started spreading throughout the networked, digital world, allowing people to create personalized home pages within a given network, and link themselves with other, like-minded individuals.[11] These social networks allow people to seek out friends, dates, business partners, and chat buddies. It's like going to a bar, joining a social club, and hitting business cocktail parties all without leaving your home.

It's a digital Six Degrees of Separation, and along with the proliferation of mobile technology and high-speed networks, it's about to change the way--well, you know the refrain by now.

The first digital social network--inasmuch as it was both digital and social--emerged out of the laboratories of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1961, where a group of utterly brilliant, if slightly eccentric, computer hackers worked on software and hardware that would eventually become what we know today as the Internet.[12] These programmers spent hundreds, likely thousands, of hours working on software solutions that would allow them to hunt each other down in "outer space." These code monkeys would leave their programming sitting in a drawer by the computer lab, allowing anyone to come in, tinker, and upgrade the program called Spacewar! Later, as computer technology got better, they would code together--watching each other through remote connections, hacking into each other's folders to modify code, and leaving messages for friends and foes alike.[13]

Modern networks work in much the same way, and they shouldn't been written off as a fad only the weird join. The biggest social networks boast several million users, and for the technologically inclined, they provide a powerful way to seek out and connect with those whom they would otherwise never reach. Friendster has accumulated five million users who have tolerated slow Web page load times, lost emails, and a general user interface that can drive someone to drink.[14]

Friendster operates like this: users provide a password and username to sign up, and then they upload photos and input a series of personal information. It's that simple. In and of itself, it sounds pretty boring. Once users have an account, though, they can search for friends already on the network. With a simple click, they can invite those people to become part of their, well, social network. Once the invitation has been accepted, that person's picture appears on the user's home page--and the user then has access to their invitees' social networks. (Those connections are "first degree connections," while the initial connection is a "direct connection.”) There is also a user search function, which allows people to surf through the entire Friendster network (or do directed searches for people who live in the same area or have the same interests).

Maybe the most powerful function--or, at least, the function that has the most potential--is the bulletin board communication network, which allows people to post a note to everyone in their social network. With this, people can easily reach hundreds of people--who can, in turn, forward that information to hundreds more. Within minutes, well-placed messages can travel at the speed of the Internet.[15]

However, social networking isn't tied entirely to these social networking services. The best blogs, for instance, contain links to other like-minded sites. Friendster--while merely one of a handful of services--and blogs are the current final piece of the puzzle when it comes to the potential of delivering personalized media to the masses. See also: Ryze, Tickle, Orkut, and LinkedIn.

 

Part IV: Mobile Networking

Blogs and social networks, though, no longer need to be tied only to the personal computer. People can now roam wherever they want, with the knowledge that their entire lives are packed safely away in their pockets, residing on small, powerful, multipurpose handhelds. The hybrid devices--many of which are already hitting the market--store personal calendars, phones, cameras that record still and moving pictures, music players, and television receivers. Along with that, these devices--dubbed smart phones--are not only connected to the Internet through dial-up speed services, but also come with WiFi-enabled chips that let individuals connect with each other directly over short distances.

It's an all-powerful, mobile remote control for life--and it's quickly becoming a staple for young adults who with each passing day are participating in the digital cultural landscape in ways that couldn't even be imagined just five years ago. Just over 85 percent of teens will soon own some form of mobile phone, and along with making phone calls, they will use that technology to check email, instant message friends, and participate in social networks.[16]

Smart phones equipped with cameras have already become the norm around the world, with over 84 million camera-ready cellphones shipped in 2003.[17] Japan's NEC Corporation led the way with 13.1 million smart phones, followed by Finland's Nokia, South Korea's Samsung, Japan's Panasonic, and Sony Ericsson, which is joint venture between Japan's Sony Corporation and Sweden's Ericsson

Cell phones and other smart handhelds are already changing the way that people, particularly those under 30, interact with their world.[18] The Palm Treo 600, for instance, runs a simple application called Vagablog, which lets users write up posts using the thumb QWERTY keypad, and then post to a variety of blogs. Sites like Buzznet enable users of the 84 million camera-ready phones shipped in 2003 to snap a picture and instantly publish it on the Web.

Howard Rheingold, in Smart Mobs, first pointed out the seminal shift in communication such instant networks created. It's akin to the first pictures coming back from Vietnam on television, as a nation of Americans received, in their living rooms, a first-hand view of the horrors of war. These roving mobile media hounds can provide contextual pictures and stories about events happening anywhere. These smart mobs can, and often do, beat traditional media outlets in terms of immediacy.[19]

The smart phones don't depend solely on user-created media. Berkeley's MobiTV streams television programming to cell phones in the United States, and Eurosport does the same with Premiership soccer and Sweden's "Big Brother."[20] It's exactly these types of data-happy services that prompted the Yankee Group research firm to estimate that 11-to-24-year-olds would generate roughly $21 billion in revenue for wireless companies this year, reason enough to believe that mobile culture will continue to greatly expand in the coming years.[21]

And, it's the expansion of these commercial enterprises that will allow the digital, mobile, networked world to grow as well. As more people connect with their wireless handhelds, and as more people get used to using their phone as more than just a device to call others, there will be a juggernaut of media activity wholly connected to the blog and social network experiments now virally spreading across the Internet.

Within the next few years, there will be roving citizen-reporters who will share photographs, blog entries, and videos from the front lines of news all over the planet. It won't be pretty, and it will likely be rife with errors and misstatements; however, it will be by the people and for the people--an argument that should give everyone hope that the mediasphere is rapidly changing.

These roving social, mobile networks already have some in the government frightened. The United States military has banned camera phones from combat areas for fear that unauthorized photos would start showing up on digital networks.

Where the governments and big media are nervous, activists have become energized because the least politically active--and most politically sought after--are re-engaging in politics thanks to these new devices. It turns out that people under the age of 25 are quite open to the idea of mobilizing political action and communicating their desires around text messaging. The Ad Council, Upoc Networks, and the Federal Voting Assistance Program launched a Register and Vote 2004 campaign that relies on an opt-in registration program in order to remind young voters about election dates.[22] And the annual Rock the Vote has signed up 150,000 mobile voters who receive regular updates on candidates and elections.

Soon, these mobile networks will be tied together by a loose confederation of bloggers, who are themselves tied together by a loose confederation of social networks. This will be the ultimate check-and-balance system and it will be in the hands of the people. It will be a giant, self-correcting system that will, at times, appear unwieldy, as millions spill their thoughts and opinions across these digitally linked networks. Yet, fifty years of Internet history show that the outcomes are better--if not a little more difficult to predict--when networks are opened up to people, discussions are encouraged, and decisions are made collectively.

 

Part V: The Beginning

The beauty of technology is that, when done correctly, it allows everyone to participate. It's the ultimate republic builder.[23] It truly gives everyone who wants to participate the opportunity to start on an equal ground. It's this belief--that everyone can play, and that everyone matters--that continually drives millions of average citizens to log on to their networks and blog, or sign on to social networks to make friends, or use their mobile handheld to find out where to vote.

We are living smack dab in the middle of a revolution of unheard of proportions, with individuals now able to connect with each other despite geography and time constraints. Even as media corporations speed to harness the Internet's grand potential and horde power, regular folks are working just as hard to make sure the power is equally distributed.

But this isn't some feel-good rant about how people can sit back and change the world. It's quite the opposite, actually. This study undertaken by CDD is simply a primer, an account of the tools that are now in the hands of the layperson, and a few thoughts on how these tools can be used. As always, the power of technology still lies squarely in the hands of those who use it. Fortunately for us, millions of people have already started exploring these new realms, figuring out stunning new ways to connect with each other and participate in the forces--political, social, and educational--that help steer our lives.

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Notes

[1] This is a distant cousin to the first computer, the Apple, which was designed by then-HP employee Steve Wozniak. The irony is that my machine runs on Microsoft's XP operating system, the very company that nearly put Apple out of business. Back to text

[2] With the right downloaded software applications, it lets me record television programs with my built-in digital video recorder, strip off the embedded rights management, burn a disk, and watch the recorded show in my living room. This, of course, is illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and I would never actively encourage anyone to Google software applications that stripped DRM from the Windows Media Center. Doing so would constitute a violation of the DMCA, as well. It's especially illegal to download that software, run it, play the recorded media in that software application, and record it sans DRM. Then you've broken the same law like--I don't know--six, seven times. I would never encourage that. Back to text

[3] wiredbeat2000 for MSN and Yahoo Messengers; wiredbeat99 for AIM. Back to text

[4] I may be biased because I lived in the Bay Area from 1998-2002, and then returned to Austin. Both of these cities are extremely wired, whereas my home in northern Appalachia boasts almost no wireless hubs. Back to text

[5] I am the new media director at VTV: Varsity Television, an independent cable network; a blog writer for Variety; a college teacher; and founding member of two media publishing companies in Austin--and I still can't keep up. Back to text

[6] For a brief history of the origins of networked culture, see Stephen Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (New York: Doubleday, 1984), and Katie Hafner & Matthew Lyon, Where Wizards Stay up Late: The Origins of the Internet (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). Back to text

[7] See, for example, "The Sixty-First Minute," Power Line, Sept. 9, 2004, http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007760.php. Back to text

[8] Ironically, it was Wired News that helped spur the Downhill Battle action after it ran a story on the group. Back to text

[9] Nielson/Netratings, "U.S. Broadband Connections Reach Critical Mass, Crossing 50 Percent Mark for Web Surfers, According to Nielson/NetRatings," Aug. 18, 2004, http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_040818.pdf. Back to text

[10] Nielson/Netratings, "U.S. Broadband Connections Reach Critical Mass." Back to text

[11] For a discussion of social networks, see Lada A. Adamic, Orkut Buyukkokten, and Eytan Adar, "A Social Network Caught in the Web," Fist Monday, June 2, 2003, http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue8_6/adamic/. Back to text

[12] My writing partner gets upset when I write things like "the first." Rightfully so, because there were likely others out there who predate this group. However, it's generally accepted that the M.I.T. hackers created the first socializing, digitally networked society. I'm okay with that because I've got bigger problems. I've footnoted this passage, giving credit to my writing partner and myself, since we did this research--which was based on the work of another writer. I was self-referential squared, with a tinge of hearsay. This is why people don't trust journalists. Back to text

[13] Brad King and John Borland, "Machine Games," in King and Borland, Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic (Emeryville, CA: McGraw-Hill, 2003): 23-40. Back to text

[14] Chris Tucker, "Joined at the Chip," Southwest Airlines Spirit, June 2004: 48-52. Back to text

[15] Of course, the largest use of this type of mobile, social network will likely be trying to find a date. Already, services allow people to receive notification about potential matches who are in the area. Pictures can be sent to each phone, and if both parties express interest in meeting, an actual connection can be made. Back to text

[16] Chris Schiano, et al, "Teen Use of Messaging Media." CHI '02: Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2002: 594-95. Back to text

[17] David Pringle, "Nokia Clicks With Camera Phones," Wall Street Journal, Mar. 29, 2004. Back to text

[18] Myself excluded. At 32, my digital media habits are more closely mirrored, from what I hear, by Asian teenagers. Back to text

[19] While they are more immediate, online reports are not always as accurate as the traditional media. Blogs are, in a real sense, the new first draft of history--which is what newspapers claimed to be for much of that medium's existence. Newspapers are now taking on more of a magazine role, explaining the ramifications of yesterday's news. Magazines, ironically, have remained largely unaffected in terms of the role they play, because these publications continue to take the longer view of subjects. Back to text

[20] Associated Press, "New-Wave Cell Phones Arriving in Europe," CNN.com, Mar. 1, 2004, http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/02/26/multimedia.mobile.phone.ap/. Back to text

[21] Yuki Noguchi, "Cell Carriers Tap Teen Market," The Register-Guard (Eugene, Ore.), Apr. 29, 2004, http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/04/29/a1.nat.teenphones.0429.html. Back to text

[22] Katherine Goodloe, "Youth Voter Drives Going Cellular," Dallas News.com, June 25, 2004. Back to text

[23] For those keeping score, we live in a republic and not a democracy. We elect people to represent our will, which means we are a democratic republic. Media works much the same way. We allow people to represent our will. Back to text

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BIO: Brad King was named the Web Editor for the MIT Technology Review in October 2004. There he oversees the site's daily news operations, edits stories, and develops multimedia packages. Along with his editing duties, he writes a blog for Variety, a Los Angeles entertainment trade publication, where he discusses the convergence of the music, music, and video game industries.

In late 2004, he launched Demon Press, an independent, on-demand book publishing company with a focus on telling stories about the emerging technology culture.

Brad has been a journalist since 1994, and in 2000, he received his Masters in Journalism from the University of California at Berkeley where he was won the Wired Magazine Excellence in Journalism Award. He covered the convergence of technology, entertainment, and culture for Wired News until October 2002, when he returned to Austin to finish his first book, Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture From Geek to Chic (McGraw-Hill 2003). Throughout 2004, he was the director of new media at VTV:Varsity Television, a media network aimed at 13-19 year olds, where he developed strategies to deliver television programming created by teenagers to PC, television, and mobile screens.

His work has appeared in over 20 publications, and he's a regular guest on radio and television programs where he discusses trends in digital culture. Back to top

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Links

Blog Software: Publishing on the Web has never been this easy, whether you're looking simply to host a diary or hope to start a mini-publishing empire.

• Blogger: The simple software partnered with Google, allowing people to post text, photos, and audio files directly from a browser toolbar.
• LiveJournal: This open source software is a powerful software tool that comes with a world of software developers always adding new features.
• MovableType: Lots of features, and an upgraded version of TypePad.
  • TypePad: This software is great for businesses looking a simple feature set.
• Serendipity: An open source PHP client still under development.
• Pivot: A Dutch software tool that allows people to log and handle basic content management.
• WordPress: A simple content management tool for the blogger looking to create a big-than-average site.

Blog Networks: The best blogs are more than just rants. They have style and substance. Check out who's reading whom with these blog trackers that will keep your hand on the pulse of the blogsphere.

• DayPop: A list of the top 40 news storiesblog or otherwise being read at any given moment, and a dedicated search of blogs.
• Technorati: A tracking system for those who want to find who is linking to their blog.
• Feedster: A search engine dedicated to weblogs and major media outlets.

Social Networks: Cyberspace is a big place, and it can get lonely. Join a social network, though, and keep up with old friends and make new acquaintances.

• Friendster: A popular social network, primarily used by the under thirty crowd looking to make friends and influence people.
• Orkut: Google's foray into the social networking scheme, still a little buggy but growing fast.
• MyPlace: A social network that combines friend searches with personal blogs.
• LinkedIn: A business network where old colleagues can keep together as they move from job to job.
• Ryze: A business and social network smashed together, with minimal graphics.
• Tickle: A social network for the high school and college crowd looking for personality tests and hook-ups.
• Tribe: A social network that dispenses with the national networks, and connects people in cities across the United States.

Mobile Networks: The digital world isn't tied solely to the PC anymore. More people are toting around powerful handhelds capable of reaching out to friends no matter where they are. Now, take your blog and social network along for the ride.

• Buzznet: A photoblog site broken down into a variety of communities.
• Smart Mobs: Howard Rheingold's blog that follows mobile networks around the global.
• Dodgeball: A local, mobile network that allows people to connect with other by locating friends who are nearby.
• Playtxt: A mobile short message service that let's on-the-go singles connect with others in the United Kingdom.
• Multiply: Combines Friendster and Blogger functionalities with the power of handhelds, giving users the ability to blog, post photos, and connect with friends wherever they are.