Introduction

The Internet, World Wide Web (WWW), Usenet, electronic mail, messaging and bulletin board services (BBSs), intranets; these are the words that probably best define the late 1990s. Electronically
distributed, almost instantaneous, communication has for many people supplanted the postal service, telephone, fax machine—in some cases it has supplanted face-to-face communication as well.

1 Information, Internet, and Community: Notes Toward an Understanding of Community in the Information Age

It seems that in the few years since the Internet's rise from a network of computers to popular cultural (and commercial) icon, metaphors are no longer necessary for its description. Once it was necessary to point out the Internet's function as an "information highway,"
to evoke metaphors of movement, speed, control, destination, and voyage. Whether promoting the use of the Internet, as Microsoft did with its "Where do you want to go today?" advertising campaign, or being
critical of its development, as is Michael Noll (1997), who stated, "The (information superhighway) has not been as super as many have promised.