Johan Soderbergh’s new book is out and available via Amazon. While very pricey, which is really contradictory for such a topic, I have no doubt that this will be a significant book, as I’ve had the chance to read and hear Johan before. We hope to feature excerpts in our P2P Book of the Week… Continue reading
Date archives "November 2007"
Some general comments on reputation economies
I’m far from being an expert in this topic, but I have been invited to participate in the Yale Information Society Project Symposium on Reputation Economies in Cyberspace, where I will speak in the panel on “Making a Name Online”, based on our experiences with launching the P2P Foundation from scratch. Part of the exercise… Continue reading
Launch of the Equal Dignity Group in Norway
Invitation to the Equal Dignity Group Launch Seminar Betsy Kawamura, (e-mail: [email protected], tlf: 97 00 28 19) and Rune Kvist Olsen (Rune Kvist Olsen, e-mail: [email protected], tlf. 90 09 45 58) forwarded an invitation for the free launch seminar of the Equal Dignity Group. Date: December 12, 2007, Time 12:00 to 16:00 Place: Norsk Taiji… Continue reading
The real social media spammers: Hollywood and the music industry…?
Big media is scared of social media There is another aspect to the recent TechCrunch stories (first one, follow up) about social media spamming that has not been focused on yet: the young entrepreneur/student who does all the dirty work has, as it seems, high profile clients paying him to do this. Comment no. 23… Continue reading
On the four stages of freedom and the need for Triple-Free approaches
One of the other interesting presentations during the Nottingham Peer Production Workshop was Tere Vaden’s intriguing presentation entitled a “Critique of Cybercommunism”. This title is misleading as Tere Vaden actually points out that people in favour of free and commons oriented approaches shouldn’t be satisfied with using tools owned by centralized corporations. Tere makes an… Continue reading
Daniel Pinchbeck on a Tantric approach to social change
Daniel Pinchbeck has posted a stimulating analysis on how we could and should approach social change. His longish posting is well worth a read. Here, I’m posting the conclusion, as he proposes a non-confrontational approach which “engages and absorbs the enemies”. My own contributions to a renewal of the emancipatory tradition have been posted here… Continue reading
Is there an enemy in peer production? 1) Stefan Meretz
Interesting contribution which appeared on the Oekonux mailing list, by Stefan Meretz: “To me the term “antagonist” seems to be an holy term of traditional working class movement, at least a religious term (Marx: “fetish”). It says, that the struggle can only be “solved” by transcending capitalism. So if you fight inside capitalism, say for… Continue reading
Abundance vs. scarcity: some distinctions
Richard Poynder asked me an interesting question: “What are your views on artificial scarcity in virtual environments like Second Life (which now has its own patent office)? Does this imply that in a world of molecular manufacturing we will see the same thing? That we will never realise a post-scarcity economy?” My reply is the… Continue reading
Viral Video Marketing: They Call It Advertising, We Call It Spam
Stanford Spammer On TechCrunch…? It is still not quite clear to me whether the recent TechCrunch article “The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral†Videos” is some “clever” publicity stunt (as some comments suggest), or if indeed the author means and does what he claims to do. It is an interesting article, so read it and… Continue reading
Launching a P2P research list for discussion
One of the positive results of the Nottingham Peer Production Workshop is the launch of a mailing list for further discussions. Thanks to the kindness of Ned Rossiter and the Institute for Network Cultures in Amsterdam, you can subscribe here, if you want to contribute to discussions about the further emergence of peer to peer…. Continue reading
Amazon’s Kindle ebook not so kind to reading rights
The Diving Mark blog has a stringent critique of the DRM implications of the new ebook system proposed by Amazon, written as a ‘play in six acts’. Please do read it in full, here are just some salient negative features of the system: 1. You may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise… Continue reading
Providing open local public access to the internet: OPLAN Foundation
We met Malcolm Matson during a breakfast meeting at The Hub in London (an incubator for social innovation), and were very inspired by his efforts to create a worldwide infrastructure of free local access to the internet at the local level, by way of the OPLAN Foundation. Here’s a basic explaination of these efforts: OPLANs… Continue reading
The political economy of peer production: Adam Arvidsson and the Ethical Economy
I’ve just returned from Nottingham, UK., where I participated in the first-ever academic workshop on p2p concepts, a conference/workshop on “the political economies of peer production”. I plan on giving a review of each presentation in blog postings here. This first post is about Adam Arvidsson’s amazing, and thought provoking presentation on what he is… Continue reading
The Open Rights Group needs your support
We got the following message from Michael Holloway, of the Open Rights Group, kind of a UK version of the better known US-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, and doing excellent work on preserving “digital rights”. The organization exists two years already and here‘s a report of its activities so far. Michael Holloway: “Open Rights Group is… Continue reading
Franz Nahrada on global villages
Franz Nahrada is one of the persons I admire most in the world, and he has been tirelessly working for others, most of his efforts going to establishing Global Villages that combine relocalized production with global connections. At this point he is facing heart surgery and I wish him the very best for a recovery…. Continue reading
Report on Japan a leader in complementary currencies
The following is a summary of a lecture by Bernard Lietaer, showing the vibrancy of alternative monetary systems in Japan. Japan as a world leader in seeking new approaches by promoting complementary community currencies to solve the economic strife that has been constantly plaguing Japan since the early 1990‚s. Bernard explained that since money is… Continue reading