The Meaning Of Place

The recent purchase of YouTube by Google brings up an interesting point about “place.” Robert Scoble talks about it in terms of brand and community. From an engineering perspective Web applications can be duplicated. It’s entirely possible to build a Web site that does something like YouTube or Facebook. This is where the idea of “place” come in. Cyberspace, or the Network, has places — Places where people gather, places where some history has occured. Saying that you could build your own YouTube is like saying you can build your own New York City in the mid-West (because land and labor are cheaper).