That's very interesting. Thanks for the reference. Actually, I thought it was going back to Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn but 1973 was the year, no doubt. While talking about origin, I remember Joseph C.R. Licklider's (ARPA) concept of a "Galactic Network" going back to the early 1960s when also ideas of sociocybernetics came up - much influenced by Norbert Wiener who wrote his book about Cybernetics in 1948 (!). Best, Laurent At 21:16 20.03.2005, you wrote:

In a recent post, Neil Randall referred to the internet as a "network of networks."

In case anyone is interested, Paul Craven and I invented that term in our 1973 article "The Network City." (in _Sociological Inquiry_ 43 (Winter): 57-88. [Reprinted in _The Community_, edited by Marcia Effrat. New York: Free Press, 1974.]

Way back then, we were referring to social networks, but the concept was the same as was later ported over to the internet (or independently re-invented).

In short, we claim terminological priority! 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 _____________________________________________________________________

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