Wil

Sunday, July 18, 2004
Subject: Wil
Time: 11:46:00 PM CDT
Author: viviansullinwank

Future Of Community: Love is all there is...

First of all, I want to thank Vivian and her crew for inviting me to make some closing remarks to the first AOL Journals First Anniversary Celebration. It is an honor and a privilege to be here. I must confess, I wasn't sure I would be. Finances are strained, corners must be cut. There isn't any information or function on AOL that can't be found for free elsewhere on the Internet. But there is something that keeps me here. That is community. Specifically, the AOL Journals community. You. And you, too. All of you.

A little more than a year ago I was one of a relative handful of beta testers who'd tackled the challenge of helping whip the AOL Journals software into acceptable shape for general consumption. Trust me when I say we found all sorts of ways to make it break that got fixed before it saw the light of day in the general population of AOL users. It was fun thrashing the code. I was dismayed that some of the glaring deficiencies were not addressed prior to initial public release. Chief amongst these were the 2500-character limit for entries and the 500-character limit for comments. I predicted that it would be a problem that reached intolerable proportions quickly. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As you probably know, a second round of beta testing this winter ironed out the worst of the problems and the necessary capital investment was made by AOL in additional storage and servers once the Powers That Be were convinced that all 34 million members weren't going to start keeping journals. Because, ladies and gents, that was an issue that chilled the bean counters to their very core: "What if we give them an inch and they take a mile?"

I asked a very similar question, out loud in my journal, just after the software went prime-time. Barely anyone noticed, as far as I can tell, although some curious bloggers out on the Internet asked the same question and it sparked a momentary blip in the AOL-Time Warner stock price. But then again, I don't have a couple of tens of thousands of readers per day like Boing Boing Blog does. But I digress ...

In his remarks during the opening festivities of the AOL Journals First Anniversary Celebration, Patrick (pattboy92 of Patrick's Place) used the metaphor of wandering around a home when the owner isn't around to describe why we read and write in our journals. As you may recall, he concluded that the reason we write in our journals for all the world to see is an attempt to find an answer to the question, "Is anyone out there?"

Well, you are out there. Political targets and pet peeves are sliced and diced faster than an autopsy on "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." You are squeezing in a two-line entry before bedtime, a half-page lament about the bad day at work, the paragraph about the unreasonable boss, the page and a half about the ankle-biter's first poop on the toilet, the cries of rage and impotence against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune ... in the form of a mother-in-law moving in with you, rebellious adolescents, intractable biopsies, and voices in your skull. Millions, billions of your words praise and lambaste significant others and their foibles and good deeds, weaknesses and strengths, ridiculous demands and sweet offerings of hope and support. You get engaged, married and divorced in your journals for all to see. Your ills and chills consume miles of screen space. Deaths bring us down, frightening some. You birth babies. And sadly, sometimes you lose them. The births offer intimations of renewal and hope for the future. Thousands have great days and tell us so; others suffer in silence and their silence speaks volumes to those who listen.

You have felt all this and more as you sit at your computer or with your laptop in front of you, gobbling up the words of your "peeps"! And yet, there is no one there with you. You are immersed in the lives of a dozen, or a dozen dozen, people on a daily or weekly basis whom you have never met. Odd. Bizarre. Reckless.

Don't look behind the curtain. None of it is real. And yet...

But I digress ...

Why do you keep coming back for more? Because it is a community. Your people, their stories. That community started out small and has grown to hundreds of thousands strong in the first year. A whole new territory of folks, united by the need to ask, "Is anyone out there?"

You are the folks on the frontier, the Wild West of AOL Journals. You have carved out the trails, surveyed the roads, built the log cabins and sod houses of pioneers. You have survived the privations, the fires, insects, droughts, blizzards, hurricanes and tornadoes. You have thrived and are ready for more to join you. And more will come. Just like the days of the pioneers, there's a whole passle of folks just cresting the rise and sighting your ville for the first time. If only one one-hundreth percent of the 34 million AOL members have journals now, imagine the opportunity for community with one percent, five percent, ten percent! Just imagine, if you will, 3.4 million AOL Journals. It'll be a Juggernaut! And you started it!

This next generation of AOL Journalers will not have your memories, your insights, nor your sense of camaraderie. It will be your job as pioneers to embrace the new members and make them feel welcome. To help plan ahead so their transitionto the AOL Journals community is a smooth one. To extend a hand in welcome, even though there were too few able to keep their heads above water in the beginning to extend a hand to you.

At the same time, plans must be made to integrate the AOL Journals community into the wider world of the global Internet journaling community. New tools must be forged, links and bridges strengthened, opportunities for integration sought. It will be a wondrous task. Your help will be paramount. It is time for AOL users of all stripes to assume the mantle of full citizenship in the online world. You don't need to be coddled any more.

It will be an entirely new approach. Sure there will be some wrong turns, bumps and potholes ahead for the AOL Journals community. With change comes challenges. Yet, I am confident that once again, in the same pioneer spirit that allowed you to overcome the inherent obstacles of the nearly-ready-for-prime-time journaling software, you are ready to confront and overcome the growing pains of a system soon to be taxed to the max by the love of its members. Because it is about love, that universal sentiment that too many of us would like to deny. AOL Journals Community is LOVE. All you need is LOVE. Raise your glass...

Ko-ko-ka-choo ... To the future! Sköal!

(Did I mention going off on tangents?)

But I digress ...

Written by viviansullinwank Blog about this entry

This entry has 2 comments: (Add your own)

#2 Comment from his1desire
8/21/04 8:55 PM | Permalink

oohhhhh Wil .. you know i love this .. i absolutely love this .. i swear for a guy .. an "old" one at that, you sure are awesome getting emotionas and feelings down in writing
i think this is one of the most on target beatiful things i've ever read
seriously
big warm hugs
pamela
#1 Comment from tjexpressions
8/21/04 7:06 PM | Permalink

I rasie my glass!
Toast!
This has been so grand!
TJ
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