[DaniFong]

I actually just wrote about this today. I was going to use Pittsburgh as an example, but I chose LA and Jacksonville instead. http://daniellefong.com/2008/01/28/third-places/

Hacker News is an example of a third place. I hang out here, as I've hung out in many other netspaces. It's creative here, it's intelligent, and it's fairly diverse. People make things and write things and converse, and for many people, certainly me, that's a fundamental need.

[pchristensen]

Ditto. The level of discussion and topics of interest here are vastly better than what's available to me with my coworkers and people I bump into in real life. Can't speak for the YouTube community though.