We’re seeing more and more ways to connect, and no one mode is all of the story. The virtual communities I hang out within these days are more fluid and less enclosed than the conversations on the WELL, and you can’t zero in on a single technology or mode that the typical community uses. They may have conversations via their blogs, collaborate via wikis, have realtime discussions via chat, do email and IM, have conference calls, find each other in social network sites, share bookmarks via del.icio.us and photos via flickr.com, etc. What’s happened is that communities are no longer tethered to specific technologies or virtual places. They find many ways to connect, and they keep searching for more.