BKVRTCOM.RVW 940411 Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Heather Rignanesi, Marketing, x340, 73171.657@Compuserve.com P.O. Box 520 26 Prince Andrew Place Don Mills, Ontario M3C 2T8 416-447-5101 fax: 416-443-0948 or Tiffany Moore, Publicity tiffanym@aw.com Bob Donegon bobd@aw.com John Wait, Editor, Corporate and Professional Publishing johnw@aw.com Tom Stone, Editor, Higher Education Division tomsto@aw.com Philip Sutherland, Schulman Series 74640.2405@compuserve.com 1 Jacob Way Reading, MA 01867-9984 800-822-6339 617-944-3700 Fax: (617) 944-7273 5851 Guion Road Indianapolis, IN 46254 800-447-2226 "The Virtual Community", Rheingold, 1993, 0-201-60870-7, U$22.95/C$29.95 hlr@well.sf.ca.us In the dust jacket blurbs, Mitch Kapor is quoted as calling this, "A Magic Mystery Tour of the human side of cyberspace." Although the points of some passages are mysterious, this book definitely concentrates on the human face of computer mediated communications. Tom Peters calls it "riveting". Now the personal aspects of net communication are important, and too often get lost in the technology. Rheingold's "stream of anecdote" style is also pretty much guaranteed to keep your attention. But Rheingold's view of the nets is limited, lopsided and even somewhat distorted. A "Nonsequitor" cartoon shows a long line of people in business dress waiting their turn at a table. Standing before the table, with their backs to a wall, they pick up a dart and throw it over their shoulder at the wall. At the top of the wall, large bold letters state, "Today I am an Expert In ... " The remainder of the wall is covered with small pieces of paper with topics written on them. The title reads, "How Journalists Start Their Day." It is possibly important to bear in mind that this is more or less what Rheingold boasts of doing in his work (page 59). Rheingold appears to be paddling at the shores of the cyberspace sea, calling our attention to oddities in the tidal pools of Prestel, Minitel, CIX, TWICS, Compuserve, and his home puddle at the WELL. While not completely unaware of the Internet ocean before him, he seems to prefer to ignore it (most often referring to it by the historical name of ARPANET). In a sense, this does not really matter: since there is no attempt at any sort of analysis, what does it hurt if the stories are limited? Instructive is the fact that whole chapters are devoted to MUD (Multi-User Domains) and IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Virtual communities on the net are rapidly evolving ones, with fast growth (the Interpedia discussion reached 30,000 members within a month of its creation), high turnover in membership, and sometimes an equally rapid demise. IRC, however, is the ultimate in ephemericity. MUDs, on the other hand, are almost antithetical to the idea of community. Not only are they virtual, but completely unreal, with the permitted; nay, encouraged; use of false personae. For those who know the nets, this can be an amusing and entertaining diversion. For those who do not, please do not base your judgments on this. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKVRTCOM.RVW 940411 ====================== DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" (Oct. '94) Springer-Verlag