Ok, How about: Hello out there.... ? I honestly don't have a clue why I chose 'Hello thread', except maybe trying to avoid more twee collective identities; I also knew I was about to rant so wanted to be very clear that I was bemused by that specific thread, not by this generally rather interesting list. I suppose in hindsight it's interesting that it's a pretty non-spatial image. Totally agree that usenet type organization of communications is pretty much a thing of the past - it's all much more ephemeral and private conversation for most people. Even when I tried to set up a listserve for my current research team we had to have a think about it - the preference was for using plain old Outlook distribution lists, and storing messages individually. We only chose a listserve in the end because it archives all the emails, but not in threads. I've just started pondering the implications of the lack of interest in websites. Eg, here in Ghana it is all email and chat, plus VOIP. The only web use I come across is educational (finding course and searching for funding); porn; and some shopping (generally with stolen credit card numnbers) and some 'window shopping' on northern goodies. And some use of web for news, either readin glocal newspapers online, or consulting bbc.co.uk or cnn. But 'The Internet' is definitely not the WWW. WWW seems like a kind of adjunct to everything else - if you need some specific info or tool, then you go to the web. So, eg, the old idea of browsing or surfing has very little resonance here at all. don _______________________________________________ Don Slater Reader in Sociology, London School of Economics Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE Tel: +44 (020) 7849 4653 Fax: +44 (020) 7955 7405 http://homepages.gold.ac.uk/slater ______________________________________________ -----Original Message----- From: Frank Schaap [mailto:architext@fragment.nl] Sent: 11 February 2004 21:14 To: air-l@aoir.org Subject: Re: Oops there goes the thread RE: [Air-l] Re: first post (An Internet Without Space) 10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD "; 20 GOTO 10 Bruce Mason wrote:

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D.Slater@lse.ac.uk 11/02/04 11:54 AM >>>

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Hello thread - <snip> But on a different note, I'm intrigued by the greeting that Don has used "Hello thread." One of the aspects on online communication I'm fascinated by (and this is pertinent) is the way in which we implicitly characterise the various media through speech behaviour. I've not come across "Hello thread" so I'm wondering if it has a history and also what it may imply (if anything) for the spatiality of

'threads'. Indeed I wonder if 'thread' as a concept exists for younger

wired (in the broadest term) users.

Well, I'm constantly amazed that many of my students, who I now suddenly realize are not just a couple of years but a decade younger than me (what happened?), know little more about the Internet than IM, e-mail, and have rather limited experience in surfing the web. They don't know Usenet, associate mailinglists with spam, and visit web-based forums that don't do threading. Of course, it doesn't help that there isn't a good Dutch translation for the word "thread". Frank. -- Barst [NL] http://fragment.nl/barst/ Fragments [EN] http://fragment.nl/ _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l@aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l