Saying hello to an old friend.


John December, and especially his online Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine were among my early favorites. I'm sure I bookmarked many of the articles on that magazine/site. But it's been years since I last visited the site, doing so now only because I remembered that he'd done something with links that "back then" seemed interesting.

On the one hand, it's pleasing to see that although countless sites have come and gone he's still filling the niche he eeked out for himself more than a decade ago. On the other hand, it's hard not to question whether he's still filling that niche. On his only recently updated page about internet tools he tells us that he no longer lists a number of tools because
Many ancient tools listed there are now obsolete and are no longer supported or widely used.
True, many tools that we once loved are now obsolete and there's no reason to continue to promote them. But the problem is that the page devoted to tools that's presently on December's site is in itself terribly out of date. Numerous tools that I doubt that anyone still uses are listed, and many newer ones that might be very useful are missing. I suppose that education the public to the communicative possibilities of the internet is a thankless task, and he deserves credit for persevering for as long as he has. Perhaps even longer than is actually necessary.



Go to: Dr. Hierarchy and Mr. Associative