As college students and especially as students of digital journalism, we depend on the Internet and other digital media on a daily basis. From video games to cameras to cable television, the digital medium is changing our lives. Making sense of these changes, and viewing them with an analytical eye, is what ReadMe is all about.

ReadMe 3 focuses on some of the latest trends in digital culture, most notably weblogging, or "blogging." Our special feature package on blogs underscores just how important online life has become for many people. The Web is a place where we can share our fears, fantasies, and musings; a many-to-many medium that enables lone writers to affect the attitudes of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of online readers. Blogging is a textbook example of this "multiplier effect." It's also a youth-culture phenomenon: As contributing writer Meeta Shah points out in her profile of NYU's student bloggers, it is the younger generation that is exploiting the potential of this new genre.

At the same time, Net culture and online media have taken hold of mainstream culture. As ReadMe contributor Kirk Peterson reports, ordinary Americans think nothing of "cyber-begging" —creating websites that enable strangers to help strangers pay off their credit-card debt, for example. Contributing writer Diana Espinosa's feature on eBay makes clear that the Net is no longer geek central; middle-American websurfers are becoming addicted to online auction sites. And as Ruta Rimas explains, Advanced Internet Development's new Internet 2 initiative holds forth the possibility of a radically new method of information-sharing.

The digital medium is changing how we think, speak and write. It's affecting how we feel about hot-button issues such as free speech and the right to privacy. ReadMe 3 is thought-provoking, confronting some of the most important issues related to the digital medium today. Yet, at the same time, it aims to entertain. Created with passion and imagination by young journalists who've grown up with the Web, this edition of ReadMe provides fresh perspectives —ones you won't find in mainstream coverage of the medium —on an evolving digital culture.

— Juan Antonio Pastor, managing editor, ReadMe 3

STAFF Faculty Advisors Prof. Mark Dery Prof. Jessica O'Brien Managing Editor Juan Antonio Pastor Copy Editor Craig Roush Staff Writers Genevieve Ranieri Matthew Zeidman Contributing Writers Christina Capobianco Diana Espinosa Charlene Kwan Mojdeh Malekan Juan Antonio Pastor Kirk Peterson Genevieve Ranieri Dan Reiss Ruta Rimas Craig Roush Meeta Shah Adam Wasserman Ryoji Yamada Matthew Zeidman Production Staff Web Design: Samantha Bong Information Architecture/Site Design: John Biggs Webdesign/programming: Brian Pritchett Production Assistant: Ruta Rimas Marketing Director: Christina Capobianco Team: Diana Espinosa Kirk Peterson Meeta Shah Ryoji Yamada