I was trawling through some of my old uni essays and stumbled upon something I wrote about the blogging community being an example of a ‘virtual community’ and how this was a legitimate form of community. It looks like it was for a Technology and Society subject.

What struck me as I read through the text, apart from the large number of typos, poor referencing and ikky grammar errors, was just how much the mechanisms for developing online communities had changed since I wrote it in mid 2003. I mean, this was before MySpace, when LiveJournal was the ‘in’ thing (although it was never as ‘in’ as MySpace).

So I have decided to post my essay here
for posterity, seeing as it is already rather out of  date. I should warn you however that this is rather a long and dull piece, which abounds with interesting moments of impressively poor grammar. The only way of consoling myself to this fact is the memory that I did most of the readings in the bath and wrote the assignment the night before it was due. That, and how I somehow managed to score what can only be termed an obscenely high mark, in light of the rather appalling lack of effort that went into its production.

Enjoy world!

Today’s Capricornian Horoscope – courtesy of my ridiculous desktop calender:

A significant alteration to your program has been under consideration for ages. Although the gulf between words and deeds has yet to be spanned, Venus and chief Saturn are building a suspension bridge.