Response to Craigslist

The thesis that Putnam and Feldstein have developed in their piece is one of acknowledging the fact that the idea behind Internet community did not exactly surface the way in which it was intended. Putnam and Feldstein argued that the users of internet do not necessarily contact and start relationships with people that they do not know, but instead reinforce relationships that have already been established. The authors take into account (with statistics) that most people prefer to communicate with others via instant messenger.

In attempts to create an online community "craiglist.org" was developed. With the goal to network various people from various locations together through the use of an open forum type website, craiglist has successfully attracted millions of users. Although the mass amount of users may appear to make this website look useful in networking various people, it can also be argued that it is accomplishing the same goals as communicating over e-mail or instant messenger. The people who use this website generally stay within their own location when searching for people to meet or places to go and things to do, therefore they are not expanding their searches to people in other parts of the county. By developing relationships with only certain people in comfortable, familiar settings, craiglist is just as useful as e-mail or instant messenger, but does not create a vast online community.