David Wiley, who just founded the open textbook company Flat World Knowledge, and is known as an open education activist, comments and quotes from an article on philanthrocapitalism by Mark Surman. He quotes the following factoids: “Who are the top funders of Wikipedia? Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla and Richard Branson’s Virgin Unite. Who funds… Continue reading
The trouble with Ourselves
A friend of mine recently wrote: > At what point did > someone say, “let’s all get jobs, and spend all of our time away from our > family just to put a roof over our head that we could just build ourselves? > And food on the table that we could have grown ourselves?”… Continue reading
Collaboration Around Local Food Systems
Right now, over 100 people in Ohio, USA are carrying out an experiment to collaborate around creating and evolving local food systems infrastructure at http://socialsynergyweb.org/oardc/ This is a collaboration between myself, Steve Bosserman, Casey Hoy, and of course, all of the diverse people participating at the site. The participants met at a summit at the… Continue reading
Peer reviewing Ken Wilber’s integral theory
Frank Visser reviews Ken Wilber’s antagonistic stance against his critics and his refusal to submit himself to academic peer review. He ends his chronological overview of Wilber’s isolationist policy with an appeal for true peer review. (or even ‘open peer review‘?) Frank Visser: “The trouble with Ken Wilber, if you ask me, is that, for… Continue reading
Axel Bruns on why Ning trumps Facebook
Very interesting critique of Facebook by Axel Bruns. After the critique in the first part, Axel focuses on why Ning solves a number of the outlined problems. Read the full entry here. Why Ning is better than Facebook: “One alternative to Facebook which allows for such collective processes (without attempting to ensnare and hijack the… Continue reading
Book of the Week: Axel Bruns on Produsage (4): Produsaging politics?
In our last installment of Axel Bruns recommended book, he asks: what are the political consequences and potentialities of the produsage of politics? Excerpt: “A crucial step in the advance towards a more participatory, active, monitorial form of citizenship is the embedding of such practices into everyday life, and blogging and other forms of participation… Continue reading
Book of the Week: Axel Bruns on Produsage (3): How dangerous is commercial enclosure?
Axel Bruns asks: how safe are the achievements of participatory produsage from commercial enclosure? Third excerpt (without notes and references) from his book: Axel Bruns. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Excerpt: “The emergence of produsage itself can be seen simply as a symptom of a… Continue reading
Book of the Week: Axel Bruns on Produsage (2): Experts and Amateurs?
We continue our publication of excerpts on Axel Bruns remarkable book about the produsage revolution. Today, the end of the era of experts. Axel Bruns: Wikipedia, and the environments of produsage more generally, can serve as vehicles for moves beyond established and increasingly ossified structures of knowledge and expertise; they pay respect not to abstract… Continue reading
Stefan Merten and Stefan Meretz on the transition to the ‘human epoch’
The founders of Oekonux are in the process of writing a major essay resuming their views on social change and peer production. Here is a extract from the conclusion of their draft, focusing on the transition from capitalism to what they call the ‘human epoch’, and it focuses on possible misconceptions. The Stefan’s: “The well… Continue reading
Book of the Week: Axel Bruns on Produsage (1): the transformation of the industrial value chain
Axel Bruns. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. We reviewed this remarkable book very positively before, but we would like to present it as book of the week as well, by reproducing some of the more stimulating excerpts. (Excerpts without the notes and illustratrions in the… Continue reading
A must read on the bankruptcy of neoclassical economics
Thanks to Robert Nadeau, who published this editorial in Scientific American. It’s a superb summary of the intellectual bankruptcy of mainstream economics and why it is so dangerous for the very survival of the bankruptcy. Robert Nadeau: “the mathematical theories used by mainstream economists are predicated on the following unscientific assumptions: * The market system… Continue reading
Video: Use of social media in Barack Obama’s campaign
via Valleyzen
What kind of business can survive web evolution?
Yihong Ding makes an interesting contribution to business strategy at the Semantic Report magazine, which I recommend reading in full. Here is the main argument: What is the most fundamental reason that drives normal people contributing to the Web? And my answer: People contribute to the Web so that they can be recognized at present… Continue reading
Owning our own data: is there a technical solution?
One of the people who is really thinking through how internet infrastructure can reflect a set of values whereby the producer of the content is in control of his own work and data is Yihong Ding. Here is his proposal for a mechanism whereby this could be possible. Yihong Ding: “There are two basic paths… Continue reading
Interview on Peer to Peer Politics with Cosma Orsi
Here’s the text of an interview (of Michel Bauwens) in preparation of a trip to Italy in May 2008. Interviewer is Cosma Orsi. Q: Your recent reflections gravitates around an alternative paradigm of production that you have named P2P political economy. What is this concept all about? Michel Bauwens: My main argument is that we… Continue reading
Creating Value: Between Commerce and Commons (Australia conference)
Axel Bruns reports: Some of you might be interested in the following conference, which takes place here in Brisbane in June. It might not be immediately obvious from the themes, but much of the conference will be about user-led content creation / p2p production / produsage (as well as questions around the increasing commercial embrace… Continue reading