Cyberville: Clicks, Cultures, and the Creation of an Online Town Book

Here is a look at the workings of ECHO, a New York-based online community, by founder Stacy Horn, who runs the community and cherishes its eccentricities. ECHO is an example of "Cyberville" and, according to Horn, it is a place where people live much as they do in their own physical towns. Horn's story demonstrates how ECHO evolves and functions. While this is the story of one particular cyberville, members of ECHO experience the same joys, thrills, frustrations, and issues that members of every virtual gathering place--from small bulletin board systems to the giant America Online--face. Horn highlights all the things you can expect to happen in an online community--thoughtful discussion, irreverent play, unabashed libido--and all the personalities you can expect to find--the clowns, the humorless, and the total jerks. In her personal style, Horn talks about what it is like to be a part of such a community both as a participant and as the person responsible for running it. She chats about how it looks and feels to judge whether a user should be banned or to introduce a celebrity like John F. Kennedy Jr. to the ranks. Horn also fills the book with excerpts from users' posts--many of them an excellent example of the bright banter that takes place when conferencing is going well. Although Horn expounds on her own views on cybercommunity, she does so without pretense or pomposity. These are clearly personal views born of her experience and, even at her most forceful, Horn maintains a style that discourages readers from taking her discourse as The One Truth. Instead her writing shares the online world she's helped build and loves. Horn's personal tour of one small town in cyberspace has all the drama and humor of real humans interacting.Read More