@pimoore @jemostrom @JohnPhilpin Eh. What do they offer? Why are they better? For anybody other than the enthusiasts who are already using it? And are those people using it that much? Maybe I'm unlucky and only notice when people rediscover the barren instances they set up the last time they got in a huff with Twitter; it reminds me of message boards back in the day.

I'm not confident most people see the value of the social web beyond the basic level of the big silos. Given the way communities can spiral into bad habits, I don't blame them. Even those of us who are enthusiasts are invariably drawn to physical representations of our digital communities, including the middle ground (video and audio calls).