Christopher Koch at CIO (Magazine) Blogs has a very strong opinion about the claim that web 2.0 automatically creates "community." - Web 2.0: A Community in Denial.
I'm not seeing real objective evidence that Web 2.0 and more specifically, social networking, are creating real communities. I think community is the code word of denial of the 00s, allowing people to slide past any discussion or proof of real value, just as collaboration was the code word of denial of the 90s for the disastrous wave of online b-to-b exchanges that wasted millions of investors' dollars.
His primary argument is against the claim that web 2.0 technologies will automatically create community. With that, I have to agree.
However, there is much more to the idea behind web 2.0 than solely the technology. The tech helps bring communities together, but if it isn't there to begin with, I doubt the technology will create it from nothing.
Just to note. I don't think Koch is railing against the idea of community, per se. There have been many documented success stories in building communities of practice. Interestingly, the ones I can think of are primarily built in web 1.0 technologies.