A Penguin in the Orchard

Blasting Caps

Ernie the Attorney has an interesting new blog set up to preview the upcoming PopTech. In the first installment of a series of interviews with the PopTech speakers, journalist J.D. Lasica interviews Howard Rheingold on his new book Smart Mobs and his views on “New Human Societies in Cyberspace.” Some interesting observations:

There’s a group in Helsinki, young folks who have a physical gathering place, a social club, and a virtual community. If you go to their office, which offers you a coffee machine, a kitchen, a copier , a telephone and wireless Internet access, your key has a little RF ID electronic chip in it that will let other people in your social network know that you’re in the building. So if you’re sitting at home and you’re part of the virtual community, then that name will pop up on the buddy list on your screen. Or you’ll get an SMS message. So we’re now seeing people in virtual communities getting together face to face and coordinating while they’re moving between places. We’re seeing an extension of virtual communities into the mobile space. And we’re also seeing groups of people who know each other being able to stay in touch while they’re moving around.

In other words, we’re continuing to knock down the barriers between the physical and cyber world. Or, maybe more succintly, we’re discovering that technology has blasted them away already and we’re finding valuable ways to use the holes left behind.