 I have continued to think about the proposals of Marc Fawzi, expressed in his Unwisdom of Crowds article.   In the previous entries, I presented and endorsed some of his conclusions, but here, I want to be critical, inspired by the insights of peer to peer theory. I’m hoping that Marc will address… Continue reading
Date archives "July 2006"
Going beyond the unwisdom of crowds, part two: a critique of the Web 2.0 paradigm and its Web 2.5 alternative
Developing a true understanding of the peer to peer relational dynamic requires grappling with the contradictory relationships between the broad participation that it enables, and the issue of hierarchy, leadership, and selection for excellence, which still exist, though in a transformed way. I’m learning a lot from the clear ideas of Marc Fawzi, from whom… Continue reading
Controlled Identity services: Naymz, ClaimID
Reblogged from the excellent Mashable blog, an excerpt on a new ‘controlled identity’ service for the internet: “Naymz is a new online identity service along the lines of ClaimID. The idea is that you can create an accurate profile of yourself and pay Naymz for top placement on the search engines – in fact, the… Continue reading
Swarming and global complex microstructures
Readers of this blog are probably familiar with the concept of swarming, which we define/cite as follows in the P2P Encyclopedia: Swarming is “a seemingly amorphous, but deliberately structured, coordinated, and strategic way to strike from all directions, by means of a sustainable pulsing of force,â€? (John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt) Swarming is used in… Continue reading
Report: open standards, open source, and open innovation should be adapted as public policy
Reposted from Linux Devices: “A business- and university-led public policy group has issued a downloadable 72-page report examining open standards, open source software, and “open innovation.” The report concludes that openness should be promoted as a matter of public policy, in order to foster innovation and economic growth in the U.S. and world economies. The… Continue reading
“Alternative freedom”, documentary on copyright and the war against cultural freedom
The new video documentary has a trailer here, which is reallyworth watching as it is a fine mix of quotes from Lawrence Lessig, Richard Stallman, and others. Iis now shown in New York and presented as follows: “While Congress changes our copyright laws under the behests of a few powerful corporations, individuals across the United… Continue reading
Jimmy Wales announces project to wikify politics
Re-blogged from Michael Parekh, announcing the Campaign Wikia project: Â Jimmy Wales: “If broadcast media brought us broadcast politics, then participatory media will bring us participatory politics…” I am launching today a new Wikia website aimed at being a central meeting ground for people on all sides of the political spectrum who think that it… Continue reading
How to avoid the unwisdom of crowds
Peer to peer like structures are not always better, and the quality of peer to peer processes often depend on the precise mix of leadership and democracy. A wrong mixture gives rise to the kind of wrongheaded processes recently decried by Jaron Lanier. So the following reblogged entry is extremely important to understand this. Thanks… Continue reading
Nature’s experiment into peer review
Here’s a great blog post from Chris Anderson on Nature and peer review practises. I liked especially his attention on the definition of “peer”. reblogged from Chris Anderson’s blog “The scientific journal Nature is conducting a fascinating experiment in “open peer review”, which it describes this way: In Nature’s peer review trial, lasting for three… Continue reading
Podcast: Michel Bauwens on P2P and the Commons
This is a recording of a lecture given at Cambridge University earlier this year. In the lecture he discusses his ideas on P2P.
Lala.com for CD sharing and exchange
Reblogged from Copyfighter Musings: “LaLa.com allows individuals to trade their own CDs with each other. Someone recently wrote me to say LaLa.com is based on “facilitating piracy.” It’s sad that any time a novel sharing service comes out, the first instinct is to demonize it rather than find a way to embrace and monetize what… Continue reading
Digitizing your VHS tapes with the R2 Neuros MPEG4 Recorder
Re-blogged from Copyfighter Musings: If you ever wanted to transfer your VHS tapes into digital format, this tool will help: ” the Neuros MPEG4 Recorder 2 (the “R2”), digitizes analog video output and records it to a CF card or a memory stick in MPEG4 format. The video can then be put on your computer,… Continue reading
The radical copyright critique of Piratbyran
The following is a really interesting text presenting the most radical critique of copyright, namely that it is totally inappropriate to use legislation intended for write-only media, in the digital read/write realm. I really recommend reading it in full here. For background, we updated the material in the P2P Encyclopedia on the – Grey Commons… Continue reading
The General Intellect at Procter & Gamble
Re-blogged from Adam Arvidsson at the Actics blog: For background on the concept of the General Intellect, see here. “I’ve been away from the blog for a while. That’s because I’ve moved to Milan for my summer tenure as a visiting professor at the university there. Having unpacked books and boxes I’m going through backlogs… Continue reading
How To Solve The Net Neutrality Problem
by Sam Rose [reblogged from Cooperation Commons Weblog] [bliki|What is a bliki?] Robert X. Cringely has new posting wherein he discusses his concept of each of us owning our last mile, and cooperatively creating our own “pipes”. This connects to an ongoing series of postings we’ve been making at smartmobs.com about the looming spectre of… Continue reading
The Lonely Individual and the Multitude
Re-blogged from the Swarming blog, an interesting meditation on the nature of identity in the new webbed world. For some background understanding on the concept of the multitude, see here. Swarming writes: “In catching up with my long list of texts I’ve tagged with the imperative “READTHIS,” I just finished Antonio Negri’s piece, “Towards and… Continue reading