A group of us have been studying Chapleau, northern Ontario. We have discovered that in addition to the I and the C of ICT, the folks there use the Internet more than urbanites to find out about -- and to order -- goods. Sorta like the Sears or the Eatons catalog of old that served rural areas. Some may even sell on eBay, etc -- we'll check on that this fall. Altho you might argue that browsing the net for goods is "Information", it would be a real stretch to say that actually buying and selling goods is info (or comm). Hence, we propose the new acronym, ICE-T, for Information, Communication and Exchange Technologies.* Before I/we go too far with this, what do you think? *Not to be confused with the actor/rapper or the tilting German train, much less that heavily sweetened stuff I get in the US South. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICE-T PS: Happy Canada Day to all. Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman For fun -- updating songs, movies and history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php Elvis wouldn't be singing Return to Sender these days _______________________________________________________________________