1. A method of distributing presence information comprising: associating a plurality of users in a distributed community of users with a presence server; selecting a set of mediators, wherein each mediator is associated with a subset of said plurality of users; communicating presence information from said presence server to select mediators in said set of mediators where each mediator receives presence information regarding subscribed-to presence information for users in an associated subset of said mediator; and communicating subscribed-to presence information from each mediator in said set of mediators to associated ones of said users in said associated subset of users.