Neighborhood Transcends Geography in a Connected World
In 1962 or 1963, my (long-deceased) ham-radio-operator father predicted that as long-distance communications became ubiquitous due to technical advances, “In another generation or two, ‘neighborhoods’ will be defined by shared interests, not geography.”
My day today fulfilled that prophecy. I spent several hours on the phone with Marty Connor, a programmer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and nearly an hour talking with Melbourne, Florida resident Hugh Thompson – who is in New York this week. Meanwhile, I had instant-messenger windows open on my computer all day that connected me with coworkers and friends in five countries.
But all this long-distance connectivity is in addition to, and has helped create, a rich “face to face” social life for me. One of the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels I’m on most of the time is SSLUG: The “Sarasota Social Linux Users Group.” We’re a group of guys who originally met through the local Linux Users Group email list but who have many other interests we enjoy sharing with each other. Some of us sail, some race cars, some are movie junkies, and we all enjoy going to the beach and going out drinking together (not necessarily alcohol). And we *do* go out drinking together, usually at least once a month, and we often go to each other’s houses to watch NFL football and do other things totally unrelated to computing.
Besides my job and Internet-based social activities, I’m now working on local citizen journalism and low-cost, web-delivered local video advertising as a way to support local citizen journalism efforts. Video shooting is complicated and not easy to do well, especially on a tight budget. Video editing is even harder than shooting, and Internet video delivery is still a major technical challenge – but it’s one I believe I have solved with the help of a number of people scattered around the country.
I need to learn more about the kind of people who are drawn to citizen journalism and how they are trying to support themselves at it. This is a large part of what I’ll learn at the We Media gathering. And, hopefully, I’ll have a few pointers to share with others, too. My new “side” business, Internet Video Promotion, Inc., is now up and running (or at least walking), and is both Internet-based and – by definition – local.
I *think* I have come up with a way for local citizen journalists to support themselves and their work while, at the same time, bringing TV-style advertising power to small, local business owners who need all the help they can get .
Robin “Roblimo” Miller
Editor in Chief, OSTG (Slashdot, NewsForge, Linux.com,
freshmeat, and other websites. )
