Informal Notes
The Well
by Ben Rogers
October 8, 2001
QUESTION
What is The Well?
ANSWER
"The most influential online community in the world."
-- WIRED Magazine
- Sausalito, California. About a dozen users.
- Late 1980s: 3,000 members, 200 at the creative core
- 1991: 5,000 members
- 1994: 16,000 members (AOL had 100,000 and annual revenues of $21 million)
- 1995: Tom Mendel, one of clubs most visible members, gives last words online
- 1997: 10,000 members Wired article calls it most influential online community
- Today: We don't make membership numbers available. Sorry. -- Kathy Branstetter, Well Helpdesk
History (from The Well)
Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant founded the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link in 1985, starting with a dialog between the fiercely independent writers and readers of the Whole Earth Review. This set the tone for the open but remarkably literate and uninhibited intellectual gathering that continues today. Over the years, WELL members have made fast friends, created enduring traditions, gathered casually face-to-face in cities 'round the world, provided support and mentoring to strangers, developed feuds, gone into business, fallen in and out of love... They have founded advocacy organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and documented what was emerging in books like Howard Rheingold's The Virtual Community and John Seabrook's Deeper.
Becoming a Member
Paris might include playful banter from people typing to one another from San Jose, Tokyo, Boston... as well as the Left Bank. Yet the ambiance is all Well. More than just another "site", The WELL has a sense of place that is nearly palpable.
It has a leftist lean to it, and from its early days has attracted baby boomers in their late 30s who are smart (many with postgraduate degrees), mostly male, and very computer savvy. Wired Magazine describes it as one of those cultural phenomena that spring up now and again, a salon of creative, thoughtful, and articulate participants who are interested in one anothers stories in a self-absorbed, cabalistic sort of way.
As with many chatting services, The Well becomes more real than reality for many of its members, some of whome spend upwards of 5 hours per day arguing, sharing and, well, typing there.
Some believe The Well is past its prime, as if the core, chatty techies who so vehemently participated during its infancy (when there were only a few hundred loyal members) are now repelled by its larger, less intimate group of members. Wired writes: Hardcore Well Beings have been bemoaning its imminent demise for yearspeople were complaining in The Wells second year that it was growing too large and impersonal. As Well users break off into smaller groups, the net result is atomization. One symptom of this materialized with a steady drop in attendance at Well parties; the bigger and more diffuse The Well got, the less people felt like socializing.