Much like the full circle that Robert Putnam’s argument about America’s social capital appears to have made (Bowling Alone of 2000 argued that there has been an unprecedented collapse in America’s social capital, whereas 2003’s Better Together documented examples of communities coming together), the cynics who have been claiming that the digital age is destroying social interaction are being continually faced with this Web 2.0 thing that is not only channelling but facilitating and enabling the kind of social interaction – even if it is virtual - that has never been possible before.

Apart from the kind of Web 2.0 examples of social networking, such as MySpace and Facebook, that now seem a bit hackneyed, a newer wave of social networking sites are surfacing. Instead of bringing people together for social reasons and usually within a virtual realm, a more pragmatic kind of connecting is going on. A step away from the commercial constraints of Ebay, this generation of networking websites are bringing people together according to what they can give each other, for free!

These sites include: Read it Swap it where people can exchange books they don’t need, London Voices which brings London communities together and Swapz which claims to be the original swapping website where you can swap anything with anyone.

This kind of interaction is heartening: it is a practical way of using digital platforms to shift the focus back to real life solutions, particularly London Voices, which appears to be using online communication to unite people in their localities, who are probably walking past each other on the way to work everyday day.

A new website called Swapaskill has been set up to put people in touch with local people, so that they can help each other out by swaping skills, expertise or just doing general favours. This recent dotcom start-up hits on a growing trend of people to people non-commercial trading. As consumers crave for authentic brands they also look to their friends and associates to not only recommend products and services but also to enrich their lives with specialist knowledge; they are looking to the demos for guidance on things ranging from buying a new camera or stereo to designing a website or invitation.

This two-way exchange is not just about the convenience of having local people to help for free, it is also about the kudos and ‘feel-good factor’ (for want of a better phrase) that comes with having a specialist skill set that is required by and helpful to others. The kind of connecting that Swapaskill facilitates relies on inherent skills and knowledge rather than external factors such as music tastes to bring people together. A logical progression, one might think, from the more conditional connection of virtual ‘friends’ to the functional connection of people in the physical world, but a welcomed one at that – and hopefully it is successful at doing what it says on the tin.