Larger, urban areas are finding some of the most powerful benefits to be:

• The bringing together of people, and through these people, their organizations and affiliations
• The summarizing and providing in one place, detailed information on all available services
• Conversations are happening in online discussion areas that do not tend to happen otherwise (due to time, distance constraints)

Smaller, rural areas are finding some of the most powerful benefits to be in the area of economic development, eg.:

• Giving small, isolated, rural businesses the same advantages as larger, more centrally-located ones
• Entire new industries and jobs are being created in these areas
• People can now telecommute and work remotely
• Communities re providing alot of helpful information to potential visitors and future residents, and people are using this information to plan their trips and to relocate

Both urban and rural reas are finding:

• Individuals are feeling more empowered: to continue lifelong learning, to find new jobs, to pursue their interests, to find whatever information they need
• Volunteers are gaining valuable technical and social skills, that are helping them to get better jobs
• Some of these projects are providing important "incubator" services to small local businesses, allowing them to "get their feet wet" and try things out before launching their own services
• Interestingly: the technology aspect of these projects tend to "level the playing field". It is so equally strange to everyone initially, that titles & pretense drop away, leading to a kind of sharing and communicating between people that is difficult to have happen normally.