Can social networks effectively bridge the cultural divide?

For example, I believe that the internet is not a great mediator between communities.

Yes, we have fantastic tools to assemble crowds of like-minded netizens, of that there is no doubt. And on a more granular level, a service like ChatRoulette is bringing people of vastly different backgrounds together daily, even if the exchanges often border on the absurd or the obscene. But are there gathering places where cultures collide en masse?

In meatspace, a.k.a. "offline", we find a handful of good examples of the cultural interface I'm talking about. The 1995 Rugby World Cup, while ostensibly a festival celebrating a very specific sporting tradition, was in fact a forum for the rest of the world to make the acquaintance of post-apartheid South Africa. More importantly, it was a moment where South Africa's different cultures, divided as they were and still are, came to terms with each other. They've made a movie about it, so it must be true, right?

So, what would a successful cultural interface look like online? And once we have it, who would really care?

Read the full article on www.memeburn.com.