David Brake is a London-based freelance virtual communities consultant and journalist. In 2000 he was the Communities Director for Network of the World- an ambitious TV, web and community network aimed at the growing global broadband market - and he has been a participant in virtual communities based both here and in the US since 1988. One of the earliest journalists to cover the Internet in the UK, starting in 1994, he went on to start one of the country's most popular Internet sites New Scientist Planet Science in 1995 and was involved in the launch of the world's first consumer digital television project.