Blogs, Online Communities, and the Death of Distance

Cairncross predicted that distance would cease to be a factor in the cost of electronic communications, and he was right. Anyone can set up a blog for free, just like I set up this one. Posts are instantly available to anyone with an internet connection, anywhere in the world. If enough people visit I may have to start paying the hosting site for its services, but whether the bandwidth-hogging traffic comes from 3 miles or 3,000 miles away is irrelevant. This holds true for both blogs and online communities.

Blogs and communities have killed distance in a way not mentioned by Cairncross. He focused on the corporate impact, but distance has also died with regard to more personal pursuits.

My Life as a Mom, for example, receives comments from local friends of the blogger, but also out of state and occasional international comments. For the most part, the discussion is focused on the central theme of the blog (child rearing and motherhood), but what a few years ago would have required several personal letters or phone calls involving two people can now be a conversation among several people spread over huge distances.

Talkbass is one of my favorite online communities. As a self-taught bassist, this community has been invaluable to me. We bassists can get practice tips, consumer reports, album recommendations, directions to the best stores and venues in various cities, and general camaraderie with no respect to distance. In addition to all of that, the classified section is a great source of good used equipment, and a great place to sell one's surplus gear. Having access to a community of hundreds or thousands of bassists all around the world enriches us all, and would be absolutely impossible to replicate using any other medium.

One of the great killers of distance and time with both of these media is the fact that they are archived. It is often not even necessary to engage in a new conversation on a certain topic. Older conversations that have already answered the question are their for our perusal anytime.