The common denominator in this new era is network connectivity.

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But it also hammers home a digital-era lesson that common sense suggests would have been clear a decade ago, but which example after example shows remains lost on many of us: If you share something with anyone on the Web, it's liable to be shared with everyone on the Web.

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While some may argue that RSS feeds (for Real Simple Syndication) have fallen from common usage in the social media era, how would Google explain the huge, instantaneous response on Twitter from Google Reader users?

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Finally, there are the modern era jobs that have become so common and numerous.

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But by the Victorian era, the benefits of trade and a sense of the common good were taking hold so strongly that the importance of the safety of the sea became paramount.

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During the Welch era GE investors received amongst the highest rate of return on any common stock!

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When they turned rough, as amid the debris of the Sukarno era, or during the oil-price slump of 1983-86, technocratic common sense has prevailed.

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Exit the common at Charles Street and cross to the Public Garden, which is Boston's beautiful Victorian-era botanical oasis.

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And after a decade in Austin, he moved to the heart of Silicon Valley Start-up Common (SVSC) where he finances start-ups that need less capital than those of the dot-com era.

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