The potential for the internet to transform how people coordinate our shared lives is very exciting and just beginning to be explored.  Yochai Benkler, in his book The Wealth of Networks talks about the potential for growth of "social production" enabled by new technology.

The Washington Post has two articles today that are examples of what we will see.  The first talks about using the internet for public shaming.  The title implies that this is mostly in commerce -- customers trying to "shame" firms.  We'll definitely see more of that, but intriguingly, a number of the examples in the article have to do with people holding others responsible for their personal behavior.  Will we see internet shaming as a more widespread response to public misbehavior?  A litterer's hall of shame?  A road-rage driver's facebook?

The second article reports on MySpace and Seventeen magazine launching a campaign to encourage teenagers to create public-service announcements.  MySpace is hugely popular with teens and this campaign demonstrates how community sites can engage their membership for paid promotions at the same time that it tries to get teens more engaged in social issues.  Getting wired teens more involved in the issues of the day has great potential not just for today, but for the decades to come.