Internet Dreams

I've been reading Mark Stefik's 'Internet Dreams' for the last couple of weeks. The book is a selection of works discussing the archetypes and metaphors we associate with this series of tubes known as the internet. The interesting thing is that it was published in 1996 so it's got a nice retro vibe.

As I read through, I'm going to pull out some interesting bits and relate them to the current state of the web. Here's installation #1:

A Little Local Flavor

The need for local flavors of the web has been a hot topic lately with FourSquare, geo-caching and hyperlocal blogs and services popping up everywhere. Stefik presents a really interesting piece by Vicky Reich and Mark Reiser about using the web (which we normally think of as a purposely global) to serve local functions.

“Many may think it strange for us to be arguing for the preservation of local substance, and a sense of place, when it is exactly to be free from the limitations of a particular place that causes people to be attracted to the Internet. But like anything else, absence of place can come in excess.”

While certain aspects of their Reich and Reiser's idea (kiosks, community displays) have gone out of style or been subverted by other technology, their big idea, that we need to create and foster local community identity in relation to the global web, certainly rings truer than ever today.