[Air-L] ur social network sites

[Barry Wellman]

It's largely a question of definition, but Murray Turoff (soon joined by
Roxanne Hiltz), and abetted by Peter & Trudy Johnson-Lenz, started EIES in
the mid-1970s, after Murray civilianized the work he did for the US "Civil
Defense" organization.

This pre-Internet setup used a central dial-in server (at 10 cps, as I
recall), reached by an 800 number. It had some nice features -- choice of
real name, nickname, anonymous contribution; ability to recall messages;
easy to set up conferences. It did email better than email does email now,
albeit without attachments.

Used in early US National Science Foundation experiments on scientific
community. Linton Freeman had an article on its use in social network
analysis.

But the big book, which went thru 2 editions, is Hiltz & Turoff, _The
Network Nation_. (1978, 1993).

As a nice coincidence, there is a conference in Murray & Roxanne's honour
at New Jersey Inst of tech, this October.

Network Nation was named after the 1973 Craven-Wellman paper, "The Network
City", but Paul & I didn't dream of the Internet then. (You could look it
up.)

 Barry Wellman
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