Background

Usenet is one of the oldest components of what later came to be known as "the internet". It's like a giant BBS or web forum, but decentralized. In fact, the whole idea of the WWW (and the "browser" necessary to read it) was announced in a newsgroup post.

Now and again I struggle for a good working definition for Social Networking. There was a time when Social Networking simply meant knowing people in real life so that you could call on them if you needed something. You would go to parties, get introduced, participate in clubs or sports, and generally be friendly. The bigger your rolodex was the better.

Here is a list of interesting books related to collective identity and social networking. Each of these were in some way catalysts to the explosion and hype we're seeing today. I invite each of you to read these books and discuss them in these forums. And if you have some additional reading suggestions, please feel free to post those suggestions here in the comments.

The concept of a collective identity refers to a set of individuals' sense of belonging to the group or collective. For the individual, the identity derived from the collective shapes a part of his or her personal identity. It is possible, at times, that this sense of belonging to a particular group will be so strong that it will trump other aspects of the person's personal identity.