anti-metcalf law - the voluntary balkanization of the net

the bbc reports a new gadget to filter unwanted phoen calls which (like many spam filters) discards calls silently.

As with e-mail a whole new generation of people don't use phones - they use cell phones and text messaging (and skype and im in preference to electronic mail and landlines)

so these communities are disconnected - sure they can inter-work across old and new technologies, but the "water-cooler moment" caused by a synchronised view of the social net that a phone, tv or flat-earth internet-wide email system gives, is gone - already - and there are obvious social effects of this (parents are dissociated from their childrens'world even further as the set of tools to be "aware" of what is happenin on the street (virtually speakin) are now different for different age groups - so we are actually seeing cultural diversity emerging across technologies, where previously it required geography or religion:)