Open Source will be topic Number 1 on the operator agenda in 2009. One of the contrasts between the computer-based internet and the walled gardens based world of mobile telephony was the difference between open vs. closed approaches. This has always made mobile developments, despite their greater popular acceptance, somewhat of a less enthusing developments,… Continue reading
Date archives "January 2009"
Are spimes becoming a reality? On the revolution in on/off objects
Spimes are objects that are traceable throughout their lifecycle, so that they can give birth to a new sustainable economy. The idea and concept was started by Bruce Sterling: “Our material culture is not sustainable. Its resources are not renewable. We cannot turn our entire planet’s crust into obsolete objects. We need to locate valuable… Continue reading
Some P2P Travel trends: room sharing, p2p camping, intention-based shipping
Please note that I follow such trends via a specific tag at Delicious. These one were spotted on the year-end overviews at Springwise: – Room Sharing with Roomorama Note that this example concerns paid room sharing: “”Roomorama aims to provide a quick and easy way to arrange short-term stays by matching hosts who have space… Continue reading
Generation Generosity
The most important driver behind GENERATION G is a wide variety of consumers and citizens being more generous … generous behavior has already become the long-term norm. The February issue of the quite formidable Trendwatching.com ‘briefing” newsletter is dedicated to “Generation G” with G standing for generosity. As usual, it contains loads of links submitted… Continue reading
Obama’s Open Start
“My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government…Government should be transparent…Government should be participatory…Government should be collaborative.” Apart from a delicious tag, I’m also starting a Obama Policy Watch page on our wiki, to link to important policy initiatives, such as his recent open and transparent government memorandum, quoted above…. Continue reading
Report: Our Water Commons, Towards a New Freshwater Narrative
This is the title of a new report by Maude Barlow, and of a network to support new policy principles regarding the management of water as a commons. 1. The Report “In every corner of the globe, communities (not just human, but flora and fauna as well) are in a pitched battle against thirst. Thank… Continue reading
User filtering not always appropriate or popular
A case study reported by Springwise, concerning Yerzies, which “lets consumers design and sell their own T-shirts”: “whereas any designer could originally use Yerzies to sell their creations directly via their own web page, blog or page on Facebook and MySpace, getting listed in the online Yerzies store required being ranked highly enough by the… Continue reading
Network sociality vs community sociality: do we need more refined concepts?
How can we conceptualise the relationship between technological and social change at the local level? More specifically, what conceptual tools have we got at our disposal to study the emergence of new Internet-related forms of local sociality? Essay: Localizing the internet beyond communities and networks. John Postill. New Media & Society, Vol. 10, No. 3,… Continue reading
Taxes as Commons: the example of Minneapolis
In the On the Commons blog, Jay Walljasper makes the argument of seeing taxes as a commons, then gives the example of the use of participatory budgeting in Minneapolis: “Taxes are actually an important element of the commons — ideally it’s a mutual of form of solving problems and pursuing opportunities that can’t be as… Continue reading
Supporting independent booksellers via IndieBound community
An initiative worth supporting. Via Springwise: “Spend USD 100 at a local bookstore, and USD 68 of that money stays in the local community; spend the same amount at a national chain, and only USD 43 stays near home. That’s one of the driving arguments behind IndieBound, a new online community dedicated to promoting independent… Continue reading
A proposal to Obama: $1b for Community Infrastructure Builders
A proposal from e-democracy advocate Steven Clift. The draft for discussion is available here. Community Infrastructure Builders – The Online Bridge to Somewhere “An innovative “shovel ready” option for the U.S. economic stimulus – Discussion draft by Steven Clift Discuss this idea and share your own on the U.S. Democracy Online Exchange: dowire.org/us A bridge… Continue reading
Tech and blog politics in the UK
The New Statesman recently published a trilogy of articles which give an insight into the centrality of the internet in UK politics: * Battle of the blogsites: reviews the struggle between Labour and Conservatives for dominance of the blogosphere. The conservative bloggers dominate, but Labour is fighting back, with the help of Obama staffers. *… Continue reading
Study: Sustainable agriculture exceeds expectations
Report: AGROECOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. By Jules Pretty. RIMISP This document is part of a series of contributions by Rimisp-Latin American Center for Rural Development (www.rimisp.org) to the preparation of the World Development Report 2008 “Agriculture for Development”. Frances Moore Lappé highlights its importance: “On every continent one can find empowered rural communities developing… Continue reading
Seigniorage Reform: a monetary reform for the information age
Sepp Hasslberger noticed our entry on the “Creating New Money” report by the New Economics Foundation in our wiki, and gives a summary of the essential policy proposals contained in it. Report: CREATING NEW MONEY: A monetary reform for the information age. By Joseph Huber & James Robertson. New Economics Foundation, 2008. Sepp Hasslberger: “The… Continue reading
The new social media life of music
What happens to the music itself when the way to build a career shifts from recording songs that ordinary listeners want to buy to making music that marketers can use? The above is from a depressing account in the New York Times by Jon Pareles, about the proliferation of marketing tie-ins for new music. But… Continue reading
David Ronfeldt: hierarchies will not disappear
Here’s is David Ronfeldt’s reaction to our critique formulated here and which concerned his new update to his seminal paper on cyberocracy: David Ronfeldt: “Michel et al. — Fair enough. Interesting too. Some comments in reply: At first sight, I thought your criticisms meant we had generally neglected p2p networks. But that can’t be. We… Continue reading