The New York Times' Sunday business section had another good profile of an entrepreneur. This week, they focused on the creator of Twitter. It's an interesting story of how this company stumbled into a big thing.

Like most bloggers, I use Twitter quite a lot. I don't use to it to follow friends, but to get ideas for blog posts. It gives me a heads-up on what people are going to write about in the next hour.

I also use Facebook, but much less frequently, because I can't figure out how to write a status that is appropriate for my former students, my mother-in-law, my cousin in Toronto, Apt. 11D readers, my grad school adviser, and the guy who used to follow me around in high school. It's too much pressure, so I've been keeping relatively quiet lately.

I've got Facebook and Twitter running in one app in the background right now and will check in throughout the day. I guess many people use Facebook and Twitter in different ways, but that Facebook is more popular, because it connects people who have real connections with each other.

Last week, I spent a lot of time online looking for real groups. Because Ian doesn't attend the school in our town and because  he has special needs, we have to work a lot harder to find after school activities for him. It can be done, but it takes some research and some driving around. I've also been looking for a writing group, because I've been working in the local library with the crazy people for the past month and I wanted to join a group to get feedback on the rough draft.

It was very time consuming work to find these groups, because there is no central location for this information and because the local groups that offer these activities aren't the most technologically savvy.

Community life is a good thing. It makes us happy. It's good for political life. It makes us live longer. So, why does it take a week of research to find it?

It's a hackneyed observation, but I'm going to say it anyway. Online community has taken a real hit to real community life. Or perhaps it stepped in to fill a vacuum. I'm not sure. I can tell you that I don't know the name of the weird couple that lives across the street. Steve has given them nicknames — Freddy Mercury and Horse Lady. We've lived here for six  years, and we don't know their names.

I wish it was more profitable to create offline community. Other than Meetup, which has managed to nicely bridge online and offline community, real community building is non-existent on the Internet. Virtual communities don't require a physical space. You don't have to train organizers or pay them salaries. 30 geeks in a room can write code, and there's no need to hire a bus to pick up seniors to take them to a community center for an evening of Bingo. Virtual community is cheaper and easier.

Instead of being made the Mayor of Starbucks, I wish that one of these coding geeks would create a virtual community bulletin board. I think that there's a way of making a profit doing it. If you give me a cut of the dough, I'll tell you how to do it.