Alagash sounds familiar, but I’d be hard pressed to put a face with the name.

When EF was dying I had found a backer interested in helping me buy it out. However, Tim from EF wasn’t interested in their terms which would have removed him from control. So instead of getting anything out of it financially, it completely sunk. But that buyout attempt allowed me to get a look at the user list and demographics for EF. IIRC, they had something like 3,600 members. So mentioning EF to a 30-something geek in Wichita runs roughly a 1 in 15 chance or so of them having been a member

When ya’ move back be sure to tell @WichitaCindy

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Sign that you’re a geek: had a txt conversation on my iPhone with a female friend about Twitter after she listened to my podcast. How many ways do I need to be connected to people?

I was running a club in Old Town and had gotten to be friends with Kevin Kepler from T-95 (What the hell ever happened to him?), and he told me about a new BBS called Elysian Fields. I can’t even count the hours I spent playing in the trivia room. I went to a couple of meet-ups, had a great time and met some very nice people (I was Alagash, btw).

As to Twitter, I was an early blogger and a little skeptical as to the point of 140 character posts being useful, but I think I’ve been converted. I found this post because my girlfriend is a friend of Carmody and I did a search on Twitter for “Donut Whole”, found Cindy and then then her link to this post. Behold the power of the Tweet.

I’m moving back to ICT soon, and I’m glad to see there’s an active network like this.

I totally agree with your thoughts on the need for socialization.

The circular nature of “What’s Old Is New” applies to technology just as much as it applies to fashion. Part of what’s interesting (to me anyway) is also what the long term effects of this new fusion of high-tech and real world socialization could mean for us in the long term (and yeah, I’ll be doing a blog / podcast on that one sometime in the future too

Hm – you’re a sociology person – maybe I should get you over here and on the podcast for one of these

Thanks for doing the whole compare/contrast thing between BBS & Twitter/WichiTweeps. I know very little about pre-WWW BBS & I never liked chat rooms, but I’m quite familiar with listserv-based communities, IM, forums/discussion boards, dating sites, and now social networking sites. Your blog post has enhanced my perspective on the evolution of it all. Thanks!

It’s funny how quickly we regress to social Neanderthals when we avoid people for too long. Your experience is typical, reinforcing my belief socialization is not an indulgence, it’s a need that must be met regularly & effectively. What that means for you may be different than what it means to me, but the fact we have the need seems inarguable to me.

I found this bit of your post to be particularly interesting:

” In instant messaging systems, or even playing World of Warcraft, random people that you don’t already know are almost like a figment of your imagination.  You could just as easily be hallucinating these people – they have no substance, they aren’t real.  But when you combine something like Twitter with real world interactions, suddenly you’ve changed it.”

I’m getting tired of trying to draft an eloquent comment on my phone so I’m going to leave you in suspense re: my thoughts about that bit. Hopefully I’ll remember to come back & post more later.

I’m so glad to have met you, Davis.

Your blog is awesome. Same reason I am still on twitter. Socialization. The type you can’t just get anywhere.