Virtual Social Capital and Third Places

Blogs are a good way to communicate with others, to express opinions, and among other things, to get involved with the internet. For these reasons, blogs can definitely be seen as a way to enhance social capital. By communicating with someone on a blog, a different type of social capital is created that might encourage you to post back on someone's blog. On the other hand, it could be a good topic of conversation for future in-person meetings. What this points to is that blogs enhance social capital because they enhance communication between friends and total strangers. Blogs as third places though, is a little bit harder for me to believe. I understand a third place to be physical, not virtual even if it does have some of the characteristics. The main issue that I see is the "home away from home" characteristic. I don't find the internet as this because it is virtual, even if it is almost always accessible and can have comforting graphics.