The Web is not a medium. It is not a publishing medium. It is not even a communications medium. It is a world.

No, not necessarily in the Neal Stephenson "Snow Crash" sense of a world in which we have avatars and faux buildings and virtual cars. The Web is a world in the way that business is a world.

The phrase "business world," right is not simply a metaphorical use of the term. Business *is* a world:

• It's a semi-separable realm physically. Generally, a business has its own space, usually its own building, preferably with plenty of parking spaces.
• We are different people at work, as our daughters discover on "Take your daughter to work Day." We hope there isn't a complete disconnect between our home and work selves -- and given the sorts of jerks many of us become at work, we can only hope there also isn't too strong a connection between the two selves. But having multiple selves is normal, not pathological -- we're different people to some degree with family, friends, strangers, etc.
• The are special ways of behaving and special rules of conduct that only apply to the work space: how you dress, how you greet people, what types of jokes you can tell. We've internalized most of these rules, which only shows their power.
• These ways of being and behaving are remarkably consistent. Unwritten laws and unspoken rituals abound and are assumed to be the same in every business -- meetings are held while sitting around tables, office size roughly corresponds to importance, introductions don't discuss activities outside of work ("Hello, I'm Joe Blow, Product Manager and quite a good jazz vibraphonist. Also, my sperm count is low."), etc.

It's the consistency and predictability of these that make business feel like a separate world that operates along side of the "real" world.

All of the above is true of the Web. It is a space, a place. In it we are different than we are outside of it, although we hope and expect there to be some connection. And there are special ways of behaving and special rules of conduct, although we (all of us) are currently engaged in the process of inventing them and trying them out. (Hint: Let's vote against flaming as a permissible form of behavior. Thanks.)

The Web is a world, a broad context for behavior and personality. It isn't a medium.

And here's why the culture clash is so extreme and so important: Businesses frequently -- usually -- make the mistake of thinking that the Web is a marketing medium and the intranet is a communications medium.

It's not. The Web is a world ... a world that is in the process of swallowing the business world whole.

The rumbling you hear is the sound of digestion.

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