Folks, Social network software is becoming hot,so much so that even the New York Times has noticed it, with a nice article on the front page of the Circuits section on Nov 27 2003. (A U.S. holiday celebrating Immigration, Early Imperialism & Family Bonding.) Basically, the software creates possibilities to link friends, friends of friends, etc. and to locate people with shared interrests -- although it also has the possibility for organizational and police surveillance (who is talking with whom in my organization? what are Al-Qaeda's links? who is Wellman hanging out with?) The article is keyed around the rather unique and always interesting Danah Boyd, a sociological grad student at the School of Information Management and Systems, Univ of California Berkeley. A pix of her with bright red hair graces the front page. Those who attended the recent Toronto AoIR conference may remmeber Danah's costume then: as I recall, a white bunny-eared fleece hat topping a pink jump suit. Barry _____________________________________________________________________ Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network _____________________________________________________________________