The Well Put On The Market / Salon Media To Sell Pioneering Online Meeting Place

The Well Put On The Market / Salon Media To Sell Pioneering Online Meeting Place

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Dan Fost discusses attempts by online media maven Salon.Com to sell The Well, an online community that never grew into a huge Internet business, as Fost writes in today’s article, but remains a hallowed gathering ground for a relative handful of digerati.

In fact, one of the most famous Well denizens is that of Craig Newmark, the founder of CraigsList.Org.

According to Fost, the Salon Media Group reports that the Well maintains a membership roster of approximately 4,000 users and generates approximately $500,000 per annum in revenue.

In my opinion, the inherent value of a virtual community such as The Well is the notion that members are able to freely participate in the spirit of intellectually stimulating discourse in a non-anonymous environment.

Having patronized an eclectic myriad of virtual communities since the early 1990s, I am able to identify with the convenience and ease of logging into a virtual community with my real name and freely participating in discourse without the fear of retribution. However, today’s political and social climate is filled with an invective aura of toxicity to the extent which any disagreement leads to not merely a disagreement, per se, but an outright attempt to completely annihilate one’s opponent.

A classical case study is the impending divisive malaise brewing on Capitol Hill involving the judicial appointment of Justice John Roberts. Justice Roberts is one of the elite thinkers of the contemporary era yet congressional delegates in opposition to the current presidential administration seem to favor partisan politics over selecting the best justice to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

The travesty of our societal norms, in my opinion, is the notion that we tend to quell dissenting voices and more tragically, the voice of the proverbial little people.

http://www.well.com

18 August, 2005 |

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