SFGATE -- Feb 20 -- For 11 years, father of blogging, Justin Hall documented his life online at www.links.net. Then he released a short film, "Dark Night." Hall speaks directly into the camera. He is visibly upset, crying at several points. "What if intimacy happens in quiet moments?" he said. "I think the Web makes me not alone and I feed it my intimacies, and the Web is my constant connection to something larger than myself ... but what if something you do, something you practice like religion as a dialogue with the divine, drives people away from you?" Hall's dramatic statement fits the scale of his endeavor. He was one of the most committed advocates for the bonding powers of interactive, web-based writings. But now, his sudden expression of doubt over the Internet's ability to foster intimacy marks a huge change in attitude from the one expressed in work over the past decade and shows that his philosophy may be evolving with the medium in which he works." FULL ARTICLE @ SFGATE
Mark Brooks: This seemed a little off topic for OPW at first glance, but there's a very powerful and important message here... Online 'community' is a facade. Community only comes into a truly fulfilling existence when people actually meet in the real world. The promise of online personals sites > to put compatible people in front of each other, in the real world. Your comments please...
