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Living the Internet JULIO OJEDA-ZAPATA STAFF WRITER Nothing has been hyped more than the Internet. Minnesotans should brace themselves, however, because they'll be hearing more about this global Online communities of like-minded Net users are proliferating, which has led to new forms of human interaction and relationships that span cities and continents. Griff Wigley, a Northfield resident, is an online-community veteran. The chairman of Northfield Citizens Online (www.nco.northfield.mn.us/) helps unite residents, city leaders and community groups in ongoing electronic discussions. Wigley, an administrator at the gofast.net Net-access firm in downtown St. Paul (www.gofast.net), hosts the company's Lowertown Online Pub. He was once ``salon-keeper'' for the Twin Cities-based Utne Reader and its online Cafe Utne (www.utne.com/), currently one of the best examples of a thriving cyber-community. Wigley believes that high-speed or ``broadband'' access to the Internet will help spur the growth of such communities and other Internet activities, including electronic commerce or e-commerce as it's often called. He has a stake in such growth - gofast.net supports Digital Subscriber Line, a phone-based Net-access technology. But he acknowledges that cable-based access also holds promise. Recent developments, including AT&T's proposed buyout of the Tele-Communications Incorporated cable-TV and Net-access company, may set the stage for a broadband explosion. In an e-mail interview with Pioneer Press technology writer Julio Ojeda-Zapata, Wigley discusses online communities, the Internet and how he uses it. The transcript has been edited for conciseness and clarity. Q. I have conversations with people who are tired of hearing about the Internet and think it's a fad. Your response? A. They're dead wrong. The Internet tends to be overhyped in the media because it has grown so fast in such a short period of time, and the media industry itself is being changed by it. But it's no fad. It's having an enormous impact on most aspects of our culture, most visibly news and entertainment, but just as much on government, business, education and the arts. It's becoming increasingly pervasive because of it's systemic, self-reinforcing nature - the more people who use it, the more uses for it are created, drawing in more people who use it. Of course, a steady dose of good old-fashioned capitalism tends to nudge it along, too. Q. Tip O'Neill once said, ``All politics is local.'' The Internet spans the globe, but is it essential to forge bonds among next-door neighbors and neighborhood groups? Has Northfield Citizens Online accomplished this? A. Block parties, community vegetable gardens, keeping an eye out on each others' kids, multifamily garage sales, serving on park committees and cleaning up storm damage are examples of the most effective ways to strengthen bonds among neighbors. Nobody needs the Net for any of that. But the Net can be a way to meet folks who live near you - people who you might otherwise not know about. And it can help with many of those neighborly activities by enhancing everyone's ability to inform, plan, coordinate and promote. We're beginning to see this with our NCO online discussions - people who have gotten to know one another electronically find themselves meeting for the first time at the local coffeehouse or at city council meetings. The Twin Cities' FreeNet's Web forum (www. freenet.msp.mn.us/) and the Minneapolis Issues Forum e-mail list (www.e-democracy.org/mpls-issues/) are other examples. Q. Tell me more about online communities and Net-based salons such as Utne Reader's Cafe Utne, gofast.net's Lowertown Online Pub and NCO's Web Cafe. What are their strengths and weaknesses? A. Cafe Utne is a huge global online community, organized by dozens of different subject areas, humming along all year long. The Lowertown Online Pub is a Web-based conference center that hosts a single event for two weeks, then goes dormant until the next one. NCO's Web Cafe is open all the time, but every other month we team up with (local media organizations, city leaders and community groups) to host time-limited events on civic issues. This is an effective way for citizens to become more informed about an issue through simultaneous coverage by the various local media: the Internet, newspaper, TV, radio, and F2F (face-to-face). Strengths? All three online communities allow people with similar interests to gather in group conversation to inform and entertain one another without regard to time and place. When the conversation focuses on civic-oriented issues and ideas, it's a great way to become better informed and maybe even influence ``The Powers That Be''....Well-run conversation salons, whether online or F2F, can be great for citizenship, much better than Civics 101. They're a little bit of an antidote for the poison of passivity spread by TV and factory schooling. Weaknesses? You have to enjoy conveying your thoughts by the type-written word and that means only a relatively small segment of the population gets into it. Economically well-off, highly educated white people are still overly represented online. Like-minded people too often stay within their ideological online ghettoes. And spending too much time isolated in your house with your online community at the expense of your family and geographic community is not exactly constructive in most instances. Q. Let's talk about broadband Internet access. Emerging technologies in the Twin Cities include coaxial-cable connections provided by MediaOne (formerly Continental Cablevision), and Digital Subscriber Line offered by US West and other companies. Will we see broadband wars soon? A. US West's current deployment of DSL allows Internet Service Providers to get a little bit of a jump on MediaOne's broadband service, which should be arriving real soon now. But very few neighborhoods will have both services deployed in the next year, so don't expect to have a choice for a while. Q. Is broadband access important to the average consumer? Why would the average home-computer user want to switch from modem access to cable or DSL access? A. With a PC that connects to the Net in less than two seconds (via a 128-kilobit-per-second Integrated Services Digital Network line), my family now uses the Net frequently throughout the day. In just the past week, we've been checking radar on the approaching thunderstorms, researching the crash results of various cars we're considering buying, planning our anniversary trip to Hawaii , debating Northfield's transportation plan with local elected officials, trying to get smarter about Roth IRAs, and, of course, dealing with reams of e-mail. All this could have been done via modem but we didn't usually bother because of the time it took to connect and the pokey speeds. So I'm personally convinced that instant-on, high-speed access makes a big difference. If you can get access to the Net via cable modem or DSL for about the same price as analog dial-up, it's a no-brainer. Q. Analyze the AT&T and TCI merger. What does it portend for consumers and businesses? A. I'll quote from industry analyst Danny Briere, who was a featured panelist last week in our Lowertown Online Pub: ``The TCI/AT&T announcement...is going to speed all of this up - the more cable modems out there, the more DSL lines out there. They'll feed each other's fire. ``That's great news for users. More speed to the home and office for a more economical price than available before. And more services, too. With your DSL link `always on,' your computer can become your phone and you can have all sorts of stuff - like automatic software upgrades (security issues aside) - happening in the background. ``These high bandwidth connections are truly going to change the way we all work and play.'' Q. Is the Internet an essential part of your life, or can you easily unplug on a regular basis without feeling undue pain? A. It's as essential to my work, my learning and my civic life as books, magazines, newspapers, public radio and my local coffeehouse. But I easily unplug for an entire weekend at least once a month. I relish our family's two-week camping trip every summer where we leave behind all things electronic. I've established little routines throughout my week to get alone time where it's easier to reflect, plan and just do nothing: walks in the park, holing up at the library, parking my car at a more distant lot, and having coffee where I don't know anybody. And I try to do a two- to three-day solo retreat each year, too, though I've gotten behind on that one. Q. Let's say you were born centuries ago, when the Internet didn't exist. What do you think you would be doing? A. I would've been into v-commerce - a Viking rug merchant. |
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