Early online community building deliberately harnessed entrepreneurial startup culture
Evidence
Steuer made a conscious decision to use the entrepreneurial culture of dot-com-era San Francisco to accomplish his goal of spreading the gospel of “networked, local community.” Steuer and Cool envisioned a multi-sited community: an online bulletin board, a hosting platform for personal publishing, and a cyber café that would teach classes and serve as a meeting place for like-minded web devotees. To this end, they wrote up a business plan, incorporated as Cyborganic Corporation, and sought funding. They eventually moved into a commercial office space in the SOMA neighborhood. Jenny Cool wrote the first Cyborganic manifesto in 1995, which concluded, “We must use [new technologies] to serve our own ends, not as ends in themselves, and we must work together to build a future we want, in our imaginations and in our lives.” The founders of Cyb-organic recognized that although internet technologies had immense potential, they were not intrinsically positive. Instead, improving community and connection required hard work. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 132
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Web 2.0 repackaged American mythologies like rags-to-riches entrepreneurship into startup culture — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 22; Twitter’s ascendance made its founders cultural models of entrepreneurial success in the Bay Area — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 209; Online self-presentation follows neoliberal market logic rooted in San Francisco startup culture — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 25 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Web 2.0 repackaged American mythologies like rags-to-riches entrepreneurship into startup culture
#corroborates(0.82) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 22 - MySpace once inspired a vast ecosystem of plug-in startups
#exemplifies(0.78) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 883 - Twitter’s ascendance made its founders cultural models of entrepreneurial success in the Bay Area
#expands(0.75) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 209 - Online self-presentation follows neoliberal market logic rooted in San Francisco startup culture
#expands(0.72) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 25