Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

April 1 marks the day the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link opened up the modem
lines for anybody to dial in and start a conversation. In 1985 it was not
clear that this place would be groundbreaking and long lasting.

In April 2010 we mark the 25th birthday of this grand experiment.

Here's to this good great place!
  

    <hidden>
  

    
Alan's tree page:

http://www.well.com/user/arturner/trees.html


The press release.  (Thank you, Craig) 
 
http://www.well.com/p-release/well25.html
  

    
In <1> I meant to post:

      http://www.well.com/    

(today only)
  

    
Happy Birthday, WELL!  Thanks for being around to keep me from
actually getting real work done.  Thanks for being home to some of the
most interesting, funny, informed and wacky people I've had the
pleasure to meet.  
  

    
Oh, and I planted my vegetable garden and replanted a Palm tree. 
Where are we sending/posting the pictures?
  

    
Lisa!  That's awesome!  You can put the pix online at Flickr or any of
the photo-hosting sites, or upload to your web directory as explained
here:  http://www.well.com/webtoolbox.html
Or if that is all too complicated, email a few pix to helpdesk, and we
can put them up in the welltales area with the other historic photos,
here:  http://www.well.com/conf/welltales/
  

    
I've been on the WELL since late in 1986. There is no state in which I 
have lived that long in my life (even if you include leaving and 
returning).
  

    
This is a state of another kind.  (And that's astonishing, Ari!)
  

    
To follow up with the round-up of what's going on, there is relevant
activity in several conferences:

https://user.well.com/engaged.cgi?&c=party
and in 
https://user.well.com/engaged.cgi?&c=welltales
plus 
as always
various places in 
https://user.well.com/engaged.cgi?&c=news

For non-members there is a special offer to join for peanuts at 
http://www.well.com/land/25years.html
and for facebookers, you can say happy birthday at 
http://www.facebook.com/TheWELL

That's what I can think of, anyway.
  

    
Had a good time at the party.  Did you set this shindig up, <gail>? 
If so, thanks!  Triptych was a great choice.

Took a set of photos that I stitched into a panorama:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/19933106@N00/4489104372/

It's a little dark.  Not bad for an iPhone camera, though!
  

    
Happy Birthday, WELL.

I can't imagine what my life would have been had I not found my way
here. The WELL connected me as a writer, thinker, and doer, brought be
to the Internet as a far earlier adopter than I might have been,
broadened my horizons toward infinity. 

I often use the WELL as *the* example of virtual community -
everything I learned about meeting, coordinating, and collaborating
online I learned here, and principles I learned here still hold true.
People who think the social Internet started with Facebook and Twitter
are astonished when they hear what we were doing here from the late
eighties onward. And that we're still here, still jamming, after two
decades.
  

    
Happy Birthday WELL, and congratuations, all WELL-dwellers!
  

    

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  

    <scribbled by brian Wed 20 Mar 13 18:19>
  

    
Yup.  Not to take anything away from the WELL, but they didn't invent
this particular wheel.  I stumbled across a whole huge scene once
formed around a Midwestern university BBS which was at least as
interesting and strange as the early well (and had many more users). 
Nobody every heard of it.
  

    
There's been an interesting conversation in News about calling for a
25th year reunion and bringing back some former members as guests.
There are people I can think of whom I personally miss a lot.  Others
will be thinking of different voices and personalities. 

We could start immediately with a simple offer that if you left in
good standing and you email helpdesk at well.com with a request to come
on home, we'll get you back aboard for free to say hello here. 
Details to be worked out.  Just get in touch! 

If you have NEVER been a member here, you can sign up on the Sekrit $2
page -- over here:    
                     http://www.well.com/land/25years.html

(If you have a friend who is already on The WELL, your pal can bring
you in for a while without charge to give it a try. Ask your friend for
an invitation.)

There's a starting point.  Please by all means, pass it along.
What else would be fun?
  

    
Slapped onto my Facebook page. 
  

    
Mine, too!  Come on, people, spread the good word.  
  

    
So very cool!!!
  

    
Tweeted and Facebooked.
  

    

Facebooked.
  

    
THOSE PAGES NEED A "SHARE ON FACEBOOK" and other social media LINK

(whew) (thank you)
  

    
And also the WELL's facebook page needs to have the offer on it, to
forward within Facebook.