via Critical Distance
The dark side of social aggregation: the bandwagon effect
This is an older draft entry which was seemingly never published, but is still relevant, in the context of our discussion of governance in Wikipedia, and its lowest-common-denominator effects. Here it is: There is a very important blog entry in Joshua Porter’s Bokardo blog, which monitors social design issues, i.e. how design influences social behaviour…. Continue reading
What McLuhan Could not Foresee
Our friend Kim Veltman sent us the following contribution, about how current Global Village trends go beyond what the old master predicted. It’s an excellent overview of current trends in communication and their social import. Full Title: Global Villages, Portable Internet, and Two-Way Communication: Revolutions McLuhan Could not Foresee Kim Veltman: Marshall McLuhan was a… Continue reading
Software Bill of Rights proposes new Fair Software license
Forwarded message: Note the project is still in beta and invitation only. Alain Raynaud: Everyone loves Open Source and the GPL license that allows you to freely use someone else’s code. Except it’s hard to pay the rent writing *free* software. So we invented a new license, the Software Bill of Rights: “when you benefit… Continue reading
Official launch of the Eco-Patent Commons
Forwarded announcement by Michael Maloney. For background see here. Michael Maloney: “the official launch of the Eco-Patent Commons (? was announced today by IBM and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development who, along with Nokia, Pitney Bowes, and Sony, are offering dozens of innovative, environmentally-responsible patents into the public domain. Unrestricted availability of these… Continue reading
Book of the Week: Christian Fuchs on self-organization
I missed the publication of this book by Christian Fuchs, which does not have a very original title, i.e. its called Internet and Society, but from its table of contents, we can gather that it deals with the topics that are of great interest to the P2P Foundation’s research. For example: 2.4. An Alternative: Self-Organization… Continue reading
Filesharing fight enters new phase: A “Pirate’s” reply
“In this special interview Rick Falkvinge, the founder and the leader of Swedish Pirate Party, gives his own views on the wildly heated political filesharing debate in Sweden, evaluates the political and technological prospects of P2P and talks about the dangers of citizen surveillance and Big Brother society….” Read the rest of this article here… Continue reading
User generated orchestra summoned by My Grammy Moment
My Grammy Moment is a YouTube-enabled initiative with the Grammy’s, a yearly US music award ceremony. The Foo Fighters are asking musicians to submit 60 second instrumental solos which will be judged and winner allowed to rock out with them live at this year’s show! “Are you a saxophonist, pianist, trumpeter or a skilled musician… Continue reading
Franz Nahrada: Can we produce for physical abundance or sufficiency?
Here is the context to the contribution below by Franz Nahrada, which originally appeared in the Oekonux mailing list. Peer production as we define it is a form of non-reciprocal engagement, combining free contributions with universal availability of the resulting material. This can work because there are plenty of people with an abundance or surplus… Continue reading
Crowdfund your new company into existence
A new eco-clothing start-up based in LA is inviting you to join in making a lot of key decisions in product design. This guiding principle of collective intelligence ruling decision making is also at play with French blogger Loic le Muir’s new start-up Seesmic. “Launched just before the holidays, Los Angeles-based Nvohk aims to create… Continue reading
Stephen Downes: for a renewed left in the age of distribution (2): for autonomy in diversity
Part two of the thought piece by Stephen Downes. Based on the prior critique of atomism, what would be a positive formulation for a renewed tradition of the left? We refer to the source here, as well as the full debate. Stephen Downes: “From this perspective, we can now begin to articulate a political position,… Continue reading
Stephen Downes: for a renewed left in the age of distribution. Part One: against atomism
I found this in the archives of the IDC mailing list, which I quit some months ago, but decided to rejoin after a new invitation from Trebor Scholz. This piece by peer education advocate Stephen Downes, is an important contribution about a renewal of the emancipatory tradition of the left, in a age of networks,… Continue reading
Mauro Bieg: introducing peer to peer for beginners
Santa has come by to the Peer to Peer Foundation wiki in the person of Mauro Bieg. He has singlehandedly prepared a step by step introduction to the world of peer to peer. It is written pretty much as an online course, with easily digestible capsules, and operates on three levels: 1) a basic intro;… Continue reading
Umair Haque predicts the Macropocalypse of Hypercapitalism
A very powerful editorial from Umair Haque, one of the brightest analytical thinkers of the day, see below. But first: spend a few hours going through his blog, and read, and be convinced, why Facebook’s strategy can’t work, or why Google’s Knol is a dead-born baby even before it’s launched. Provocative, sometimes counter-intuitive stuff, but… Continue reading
Annual review of blog outreach
I used Google Analytics to review our progress in reach through our blog, using a year on year comparison between 2006 and 2007. The figures are slightly skewed because we only started in February, but I think that overall the news is good. We doubled our audience, but of course it is admittedly a small… Continue reading
Anthony Judge: the Wikipedia needs a process for counterclaims
I have a very simple proposal for reforming part of the process of Wikipedia, which goes like this, and it aims to reinforce the role of experts, but not at the expense of the self-publishing by the general public. The idea is this: as the examples of Nupedia and Citizendium have show, along with other… Continue reading