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The importance of idle chatter

May 31st, 2008 Posted in Building Community

Online community pioneer Howard Rheingold posted this tweet. I loved it enough to share.

I think idle chatter & pointless batter are part of the social glue that enables strangers to form communities.


  • Agreed for sure....I think pointless banter is what keeps Facebook alive most of the time. People just shoot the breeze on each others walls. Before you know it, community is born.
  • As long as people trust it. There is wall talk and messages talk. Some of it is done for public image. Some of it is done for conversation. Pointless banter and interaction is important...but, if everyone can view everything at anytime--it doesn't mimic true communities. The challenge is to get find those "water cooler" and "neighbor's fence" spaces; not everyone likes to talk on billboards (even if only friends can see it). They like to talk in small circles.
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