Something this article doesn't mention, but was crucial (IMO) to the success of the Weblogs, Inc virtual team I worked in for a long time, was real-world meetup

Something this article doesn't mention, but was crucial (IMO) to the success of the Weblogs, Inc virtual team I worked in for a long time, was real-world meetups. (I believe Jason Fried alluded to this as well at Startup School.) Campfire, IRC, IM, Skype and active chat email lists are all great for feeling connected to people, but the first time I really felt part of the company itself - not just a remote node on a graph - was when I covered an event and hung out/coordinated with a load of other bloggers doing so. It really instilled a sense of camaraderie - it was a very high pressure task and it was great that we had been working together virtually for so long (and that some of the others had worked together in person before too), as that avoided some of the uncomfortable situations that can occur if a group of strangers tries to achieve something in a short space of time. Obviously this only really worked for the blogging/journalis model, but sending a group of devs to an engineering conference, having a team retreat (we also did this but as I was in the UK, I never got to go) and generally finding excuses to hang out productively a couple times a year really makes a big difference to the team feeling, in my experience. It might be slightly different if you're writing code, not articles; mind you, at least if you end up disliking your cow-orkers in person, you don't have to spend that much time with them!