Electric Minds Creator Howard Rheingold Sets Deal With Durand Communications; Electric Minds Beta-Tests New Conferencing Platform as Rheingold Signs On.SANTA BARBARA Santa Barbara (săn'tə bär`brə, –bərə), city (1990 pop. 85,571), seat of Santa Barbara co., S Calif., on the Pacific Ocean; inc. 1850. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 20, 1997--Durand Communications Inc. Wednesday Wednesday: see week. announced a deal with Electric Minds creator Howard Rheingold Howard Rheingold (born July 7, 1947) is a critic and writer; his specialties are on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual communities (a term he is credited with inventing). . Rheingold will be responsible for building and hosting the Host University, a private community designed to recruit, train and manage hosts for Durand's virtual community service, CommunityWare (www.communityware.com). Rheingold will also be responsible for community consulting and arranging high-profile online events, as he did with IBM's chess competition, Deep Blue vs. Kasparov Kas·pa·rov , Garry Born 1963. Azerbaijani chess player who became the youngest world champion ever in 1985 after defeating Anatoly Karpov. He beat the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue 4 games to 2 in 1996, but lost a rematch in 1997. . Last month, Durand Durand, family: see Duran. Communications purchased the assets required to maintain the Electric Minds community. At that time, no formal deal was signed with Rheingold and the two community services were to remain as separate entities. However, as of Sept. 14, the contract between Electric Minds and its current conferencing See teleconferencing. platform expires, thus Durand will migrate the entire Electric Minds community to CommunityWare. Starting this month, Durand will begin beta-testing the new conferencing platform with selected Eminders. CommunityWare's new conferencing platform integrates the best of Electric Minds' current functionality and also provides Eminders with the enhanced communications capabilities of CommunityWare. Eminders will still access Electric Minds from www.minds.com . With the integration, CommunityWare will gain nearly 80,000 new users. Durand made an investment in Electric Minds because it values the history and self-governing model that Rheingold has fostered. In his new role, Rheingold will participate within CommunityWare, helping to integrate many of the same social principles evolving within Electric Minds. The Host University, led by Rheingold, includes a monthly budget to recruit, train and pay community hosts for CommunityWare and Electric Minds communities. Some graduates of the Host University will be paid to host Universal Communities under these categories: Education, Government, Consumer, Business and Special Interest Groups (SIGs). These paid hosts will be responsible for maintaining the community, moderating conferences, providing support to members of the community and attracting new members. "As author of `The Virtual Community' and the creator of Electric Minds, Rheingold has demonstrated an unparalleled ability to build and manage virtual communities," said Andre Durand André Durand (born Canada 1947) is a painter working in the European tradition. He is heir to such painters as Rubens, Titian and Velasquez. Although Durand is perhaps best known for his allegorical portraits, such as Princess Diana as Fortuna, he achieved international , president and chief executive officer of Durand. "We believe his involvement in our new Host University will draw a lot of talent to CommunityWare, and we have faith that he will train the future hosts of CommunityWare to make their communities as vibrant and successful as the Electric Minds community." "Durand's vision of electronic communities is very similar to mine," said Rheingold. "The Web is a social medium. Give people the tools to communicate with each other and sustain community, provide models of high quality conversation, help them govern themselves, and they will use the Web to build communities and ultimately conduct transactions online." Electric Minds was formed in spring 1996 to realize a vision of the "social Web" -- a large-scale electronic community devoted to discussing science and technology, and their future effects on the global society. CommunityWare is the first interactive Web site that hosts free public communities, and private communities at a nominal monthly fee. These communities can be created and easily managed by the community host (or creator). All communities offer interactive, two-way communications Two-way communication is a form of transmission in which both parties involved transmit information. Common forms of two-way communication are:
No special software or proprietary browser browser Software that allows a computer user to find and view information on the Internet. The first text-based browser for the World Wide Web became available in 1991; Web use expanded rapidly after the release in 1993 of a browser called Mosaic, which used is required. With only two months of full operation, more than 1,100 communities have been created and are now hosted on CommunityWare. Founded in 1993, Durand Communications Inc. is a Santa Barbara-based developer of technology and services that enable the building of online communities and community-based electronic commerce using industry standard tools and protocols. For additional information, contact Jennifer Larson at Durand Communications Inc., 147 Castilian Drive, Santa Barbara, Calif. 93117. Voice: 805/961-8700. Fax: 805/961-8701. E-mail: jennifer@durand.com. Web: www.durand.com . CONTACT: The Terpin terpin a product obtained by the action of nitric acid on oil of turpentine and alcohol, used as an expectorant in the form of the hydrate. Group Tracy Bagatelle, 310/821-6100, ext. 108 310/577-9646 (fax) tbagatelle@terpin.com (e-mail) |
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