I’ve been a part of online communities for a very long time.
It all started with dialing into a local BBS about 15 years ago. I discovered I could “talk” to people without actually having to talk to them. This was the beginning of the end for me

I joined up with quite a few communities since I started using the Internet oh-so-many-years-ago. I found that I was able to communicate with people all over the world using FidoNet just by calling up my local BBS.

Eventually the BBS died off, and the Internet started to rise. I wandered on to IRC and found myself on EFNet in a channel called #oldwarez. Now, what happened in that channel wasn’t always legal, but it was always funny. We had a blast just talking about random things.

After awhile I discovered the world of online games, starting with Tribes, and then moving to Counter-Strike. Counter-Strike eventually got me involved with forums, as I had to set my own forum up for a clan I ran. I eventually came accross United Admins and wound up spending many hours on there posting, and eventually moderating.

UA started to die off and I found myself looking for a new home. I subscribed to Fark for awhile, but I just didn’t fit in there. Eventually I found myself at Living With Style.

I’m coming up on 3000 posts in just over 6 months there now. I’ve met a lot of cool people, and I talk to quite a few of them on a regular basis. The conversation there ranges from the silly to the deeply intellectual, and best of all there are rules against people using bad grammar and AOL speak. Those of you who know me, know I’m a grammar nazi of the worst kind, and a lot of the people at LWS fit in the same category.

Where am I going with all this? Well, I think that Zoints is going to be the next FidoNet. It links online communities in a similar fashion. Instead of bringing users from one area to another, it’s going to bring users from one community to another. Zoints could very well be the Next Big Thing on the Internet, and I’m going to fight to make it happen.