Howard Rheingold
Amber Atherton · Apress eBooks · 2023
The WELL was a dial-up Bulletin Board System (BBS) that stood for the “Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link.” It was the earliest affordable multiline chat-based forum. Founded in 1985 by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant, it was an electronic offshoot of Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalogue (1968), a how-to guide for building your own off-grid civilization. The WELL featured message board–style discussions, divided by topic. Writing about the WELL in 1993 , Rheingold popularized the term “virtual community” with his article The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier . Rheingold has since lectured at Stanford on community and become a leading commentator and advisor for technology companies. The MIT Press has referred to Rheingold as the “First Citizen of the Internet.”