The Well: A Story of Love, Death & Real Life in the Seminal Online Community

Presents the dramatic story of the pioneering virtual community that changed the way the world communicates, conceived in 1984, and implemented during the end of the 1980s, and available to "Well-beings" who participated in on-line discussions on a myriad of topics.

If this slim volume about a model online community is any indication, there's no end in sight to accounts of the trailblazers of the Internet revolution, despite the recent fits in the market. Standing for Whole Earth `Lectronic Link, the Well was founded in 1984 by two visionary men: Stewart Brand and the aptly named Larry Brilliant. Brand was the legendary founder of the holistic do-it-yourself guide The Whole Earth Catalog, who contributed space in Sausalito, Calif., to the project, while Brilliant was a millionaire philanthropist who put up the software and hardware. They went online in 1985 with the idea of creating a virtual, latter-day salon rather than just another electronic bulletin board. Word of mouth spread quickly and soon the Well developed a distinctly Bay Area, post-hippie ambience that proved intensely magnetic to its members. Although membership peaked at only around 10,000, the Well's influence extended well beyond its members (another book could be written on the failed craze to build Well-like online communities throughout the Web). Hafner spices up the not-always dramatic story of the Well's business troubles with lengthy examples of the sort of literate, leftist, free-range discussions that were its bread and butter. Avoiding hyperbole, her style reflects her ease with a topic she's covered for the New York Times and in such respected books as Cyberpunk and Where Wizards Stay Up Late, though some readers may feel she skims too quickly over some dramatic stories about the love, rage and tears that the Well Beings (as they called themselves) poured into their keyboards over the years.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

The same year that AOL went online-- 1984--so did the Well. Modeled after French literary salons, the Well was to become a meeting place where intellectual minds could discuss and debate ideas. Several hundred others soon joined the few original members, and the California-based service attracted callers from as far away as Texas and New York. As callers posted messages and interacted, they came to know each other intimately, forming perhaps the first online community. We watch as friendships and relationships form and break apart, and we share the Well Beings' joy as one man is reunited with his biological mother, and their sorrow as one of the more visible members succumbs to cancer. Hafner does an excellent job of portraying a phenomenon difficult to believe if one has never been part of such a group, vividly illustrating the dynamics and ethos of the Well community and making real for the reader a rare experience that will never be duplicated in the newsgroups and chat rooms of the Internet. Gavin Quinn
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Hafner (Where Wizards Stay Up Late) here provides an anecdotal history of The Well, the legendary San Francisco-based online community that has influenced a number of aspiring Internet successors. The book centers around the on- and offline romance between two of The Well's members, "Mandel" and "Nana," describing Mandel's disturbing inability to draw the line between public and private and his resulting actions which threatened the fabric of the community itself. Although the community's history and the interplay between Mandel, Nana, and other members is interesting in itself, the third-person account is less compelling than a first-person retelling might have been. Recommended for public libraries where books on online communities are popular or those that do not already own titles such as the recently revised edition of Howard Rheingold's Virtual Community (MIT, 2000), which covers the history of The Well and its successors more comprehensively. [See also Stacy Horn's Cyberville, LJ 12/97, which discusses Echo, the New York-based counterpart to The Well. Ed.] Rachel Singer Gordon, Franklin Park P.L., I.
- Rachel Singer Gordon, Franklin Park P.L., IL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.