Onliners in global neighborhoods

I do like the term "onliners" that Shel Israel of Naked Conversations fame has used in his overview for his new book entitled Global Neighbourhoods [sic]. The key to understanding "global" is not in terms of mere distance, but the plethora of new modes of online interaction that no longer depend on geography or distance. It's no longer simply email and viewing web pages, or even instant messaging and chat, but also online virtual worlds where users themselves design the forms of online interaction, as well as user-generated content.

All manner of social networking tools and environments will define how onliners are inherently different from those who came before them. Onliners are not simply communicating, but collaborating. They are not simply using text, but creating and sharing complex media and multimedia content.

Social media is not simply a discrete tool in a toolkit, but is the complete environment in which onliners work and play, and they do so in a way that crosses and blurs all manner of boundaries [except maybe natural language].

-- Jack Krupansky