I'm sitting at the Docas in Lisbon, having just taught a 2-day intensive writing lab. Watching the World Cup. After the game was over (Argentina 2, Ivory Coast 1), the Portuguese commentators came on. But what fascinated me was the crawl at the bottom, CNN-like. It contained email messages from Portuguese fans cheering their team on for tommorw's game. Email was free; SMS was 0.80 euros. The messages kept coming and coming, from all over Portugal. I checked as best as I could -- no repeats. So now one can do electronic cheering. PS: Tomorrow's game is Portugal vs former colony of Angola. 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 You're invited to visit -- and contribute to -- my new fun website "Updating Cybertimes: It's Time to Bring Our Culture into Cyberspace" http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _____________________________________________________________________