We're doing a show today on online dating; what's out there, where to post, how to post, and the horror and romance (sometimes intertwined...ah, love) of the whole thing. I had thought I would write a goofy personal ad for this post, until I realized that literally everything online is a personal ad — or personal PR — nowadays. This blog for instance, has my bio, my picture, my thoughts, a few of my likes and dislikes. Most people my age, and almost everybody younger, has a Facebook or MySpace page, which contains much of the information you'd fill out on Match.com or Salon personals. I realize this is old news; but it really emphasizes the characteristics of the World Wide Web as huge social experiment — like that bar in Star Wars with all of the different species and characters doing business and interacting with each other. It's why that added layer of Second Life — everybody, their mother, and their avatar — is so intriguing. It's like putting a fur coat around your already shaped internet-self (the best photographed, funniest, feistiest version of your First Life self). I was out with my best friend in New York a while ago, and a friend of hers asked me what I did for a living. I told him I worked for NPR, and he said, "National Public Relations?!?" Makes me giggle. If you're on the web in any capacity... you work in PR, too.