by Evan Schwartz

About the author: Evan Schwartz is a contributing writer for Wired magazine and a research fellow at the Edward R. Murrow Center for International Communications at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

Can a truly vibrant community exist in cyberspace? Can a bunch of individuals at isolated computer stations achieve warmth, caring, and a shared set of values? Is the Internet becoming a pipeline for surrogate communities in an age of technological omnipresence"

Community is not the image of the Internet promoted by government or industry. If you ask the telecommunications giants and media conglomerates racing to build the infotainment pipeline of the future, they point to a world of interconnected business people, students, e-mailers, and government workers, all operating with breakneck efficiency and without leaving their desks. But this image might have...