There’s something both primal and communal about the beat of a drum, whether it’s just one or 2,008 of them — as the world experienced at Beijing’s Opening Ceremony to kick off the Olympics — which might be called the ultimate global social networking event. A drum’s beat seems to capture people from the inside out, turning something as individual and personal as a heartbeat into a collective experience. And it strikes me as very similar to what many Web sites want to do — take something as individual as an online browsing and shopping experience and make it communal, make it social.
