First, we did away with welcoming front porches as a networking device. I guess air-conditioning and telephones are to blame. Telephones dominated the networking scene for decades, but they were fed by actual gatherings of people who, in turn, exchanged phone numbers. Eventually, the Internet came along (and porches got smaller, by the way) and e-mail was all the rage -- in business. A few geeks knew about and used IRC, but AOL brought IM to the masses. Still, one only networked with people they already knew, and short of calling them (on a telephone), it was difficult for people expand their realm of contacts outside what they already knew. Then came social networking on the Internet, beginning (perhaps) with sites like Reunion and Classmates, expanding to MySpace, but perhaps more popularized in Facebook. Now, I can browse networks to which I belong to find people I haven't seen in decades.
This is pretty cool stuff, but I think I will build a big front porch, anyway.
