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Folks,

Social network software is becoming hot,so much so that even the New York
Times has noticed it, with a nice article on the front page of the
Circuits section on Nov 27 2003. (A U.S. holiday celebrating Immigration,
Early Imperialism & Family Bonding.) Basically, the software creates
possibilities to link friends, friends of friends, etc. and to locate
people with shared interrests -- although it also has the possibility for
organizational and police surveillance (who is talking with whom in my
organization? what are Al-Qaeda's links? who is Wellman hanging out with?)

The article is keyed around the rather unique and always interesting Danah
Boyd, a sociological grad student at the School of Information Management
and Systems, Univ of California Berkeley. A pix of her with bright red
hair graces the front page. Those who attended the recent Toronto AoIR
conference may remmeber Danah's costume then: as I recall, a white
bunny-eared fleece hat topping a pink jump suit.

 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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