TECHNOLOGY : Virtual Village Opens Up Alternate Reality for Townspeople : In first-of-its-kind cyburbia, residents can shop at the electronic mall. Creators hope going on-line strengthens ties that bind a community.

In sheer size, the Village Mall in Blacksburg, Va., would put many big-city shopping malls to shame. Ninety-one businesses hang their shingles there--one-third of the town’s commercial establishments.

You won’t find a Neiman Marcus or a Bloomingdale’s--the town only has 36,000 people, after all--but there’s no shortage of places to spend money on items ranging from clothing to floral arrangements.

Locals drop by the mall to scan the latest videotapes. If they’re looking for a place to live, they can check in with a real estate agent to peruse apartment floor plans or view photographs of houses for sale.

The odd thing about this mall is that it doesn’t exist in the physical world. It is but the most conspicuous feature of the growing, first-of-its-kind cybercommunity of Blacksburg.

Don’t be confused. Blacksburg is a real place. Located 40 miles southwest of Roanoke in the mountainous western part of Virginia, it is where Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University is located, home of the fighting Hokies, last year’s second place finishers in the Big Eastern football conference.

But Blacksburg--or more precisely, the Blacksburg Electronic Village--is also a computer construct, a virtual town overlaying the real one. It is a place where folks may hunt for apartments or apply for municipal permits without leaving home, where they can view offerings at the local florist on their computer screens and then order them with the click of a mouse.

Alas, the electronic Blacksburg doesn’t have a football team, but its residents--13,000, and growing--soon will be able to order groceries via computer and have them delivered to their door. If they want, they can leave standing orders: The store will deliver the same items on the same day every week and charge it to a credit card.

Proponents of the Internet--the network linking computers worldwide--have always lauded its ability to turn the world into a global village, to allow someone in, say, Fresno, to exchange e-mail with strangers in Istanbul or browse a library in Dallas. But creators of the Blacksburg Electronic Village say they are doing something revolutionary: harnessing the power of the World Wide Web to strengthen the ties that bind a real village.

In doing this, the network’s creators say, they are redefining the meaning of community.

The electronic village was created by Virginia Tech in conjunction with town government and Bell Atlantic. The project is an outgrowth of “freenets,” inexpensive systems designed to make the Internet easily accessible. The scale of the Blacksburg project, however, is far beyond the scope of freenets.

“This is the most connected town in the world,” said Andrew M. Cohill, the unofficial “mayor” of the virtual Blacksburg. A systems analyst at Virginia Tech, Cohill’s official title is director of the electronic village project, but he also is its leading booster and most prominent public voice.

His goal eventually is to get the entire community connected and to greatly expand the local services offered via computer. After signing up for the service and receiving the necessary software, residents with a home computer and a modem can enter the Blacksburg Electronic Village, or BEV, using the electronic address https://www.bev.net.

With one-third of the town’s residents already participating--at a low cost of $8.60 per month--Virginia Tech now is starting to shift emphasis from the operational realm to research. Sociologists, ethnographers and communications specialists are becoming involved to study what computer interactivity on this level means for a community.

Much of what creators of the system have learned confounds conventional notions of the globe-spanning, mind-expanding glories of the Internet.

“We are finding that people don’t care about the vast resources of the Internet,” Cohill said. One of the most popular features of the service is an on-line discussion group dedicated to where to find a good auto mechanic, he said. “I don’t think anyone would’ve predicted that.

“It’s kinda like in the old days, you’d go down to the general store where the guys are sitting around and you’d say, ‘I need to get my brakes realigned. Where should I take my car?’ ” he said.

Before suburbanization, the proliferation of print media and television, people once gathered in a community to talk face to face. “We’ve seen 40 years of increasing isolation, where people stay in their homes more and read newspapers and watch television,” Cohill said.

“Through mailing lists and news groups, what we’re seeing here is a kind of electronic porch of the general store or the county square. We haven’t had that general store porch for a long time. Now we do again.”

This university town, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, is the perfect place to lead the march into the multimedia age. Contrary to the stereotype of what an Appalachian community is like, Blacksburg has a highly educated population with an overwhelming number of computer-literate residents. The town of 36,000 is dominated by the university, which has 22,000 students and 5,000 faculty and staff members.

The campus has long had a state-of-the-art computer network with digitized telephone systems that allow modems to operate many times faster and carry more volume than the rate possible on ordinary lines. Now Bell Atlantic is installing the high-density telephone cables throughout town.

The electronic village project came about when local residents, most of them connected to the university, approached school officials about gaining access to a computer network off campus. Bell Atlantic and the town government got involved, and in late 1993 the system began operation.

One recent convert is Bill Ellenbogen, a former professional football player and owner of Bogen’s, a restaurant and bar near the university that bills itself as the world’s first Internet-connected bar. Now bar patrons settle arguments by going to the computer and finding out the score of last week’s football game or whatever else is under dispute.

But Ellenbogen sees it as a way to expose people to the Internet who might not otherwise experience it.

Unlike some ads posted in the Blacksburg electronic village--such as those for real estate or merchandise that allow viewers to call up photographs or floor plans--Ellenbogen’s ads are simple. They feature his menu and coupons that may be printed out and brought in for discounted meals.

“It hasn’t affected my business in any dramatic way,” he acknowledged. “I see maybe two coupons in a week. . . . But I don’t know that a restaurant is a business that will benefit as much as other types of businesses. You still have to come to Bogen’s to eat a hamburger. We haven’t figured out how to send it over e-mail.”

He pays a flat fee of $20 per month, or $240 a year, for the ads to Biznet Technologies, which supplies the software to Blacksburg-area residents for the service. Noting that he would pay $250 for just five 30-second radio spots, he said the Internet ads are potentially more effective. Unlike with radio listeners, the vast majority of Biznet users live close enough to patronize his business. If they call up his menu, it is because they are interested.

Another advertiser is Wades Supermarkets, a small local chain that is taking a more global view. Although it hopes to begin local grocery deliveries by summer, it will be an adjunct to a worldwide food delivery business the owners are creating.

By tapping into the Internet, people anywhere will be able to send packages of food and supplies anywhere in the world, for example, to sons and daughters who might be away at school.

David McIntyre, data processing manager for the chain, said the company already uses the Internet for its flower delivery business. “We had a person who had Internet access in Kuwait place an order for his wife in Pennsylvania,” said McIntyre. “I had a person in Canada place an order for somebody in the United States.”

But like Ellenbogen, he said the innovation has not had much impact on company profits. McIntyre attributed this largely to people’s fear of entering credit card numbers over unprotected lines.

To counter this, the company has an 800 number. Customers may call it and verbally give their credit card numbers. Then, if they wish, the store will keep it on file for future orders.

Cohill said the intense interest in local services and information also make sense because they save time. “People are very busy,” he said. “Companies are downsizing; they’re working longer hours. Everybody’s stressed out.” This might explain why subscribers are not asking for video on demand. “What’s the cost of a video?” he asked. “Time.”

He’s also observed that local users of the Internet are much more polite than other users.

“When you overlay an electronic community directly on top of a physical community--which has never been done before--that creates a very powerful social pressure to be civil,” he said. “If you’re going to yell at somebody on the net, or flame them out, you may run into them at the grocery store and they may turn out to be your neighbor.”