It has been a while since we mentioned P2P-related energy developments. In a recent report by IBM, the authors predict and call for a Participatory Energy Network, that is centered around the need of newly empowered energy consumers. Michael Powers has a more radical proposal for a global web of electricity, which we reproduce here…. Continue reading
Flemming Funch on how to deal with meritocratic power structures
This is a broad, more generic reaction to the issues raised by our Wikipedia articles, by Flemming Funch. Flemming Funch: “More generally it is also about how to deal effectively with power structures. Particularly when they’re self-organized meritocracies. In some ways it is more simple to understand the power structure a prisoner in Gitmo Bay… Continue reading
Is something fundamentally wrong with Wikipedia governance processes?
The Wikipedia is often hailed as a prime example of peer production and peer governance, an example of how a community can self-govern very complex processes. Including by me. But it is also increasingly showing the dark side and pitfalls of purely informal approaches, especially when they scale. Wikipedia is particularly vulnerable because its work… Continue reading
Let’s set the ERT audiovisual archive free (manifesto – draft)
A campaign to set the audiovisual archive of the Greek public broadcasting company (ERT) free -under peer property legal regimes- is to be launched soon. Hereby I cite the English draft of the manifesto that will be included in the relevant Web platform, which is under construction at the moment. The platform will be designed… Continue reading
On the deletion of scholar Ralph Siu by the ‘Wikipedia lynch mobs’
I have written about the Wikipedia deletionist movement before. Deletionism, i.e. groups of editors who scroll the Wikipedia in order to propose articles for deletion, is based on a fundamentally faulty premise, namely that a online universal encyclopedia should be based on scarcity, and that there is no place for diversity and knowledge that is… Continue reading
The future of telecommunications in a peer to peer age: Ecomm 2008
I have been invited as a keynote speaker to this important conference that will take place in Mountain View, California, March 12 to 14. I will be speaking about the theme: Communities, Corporations and Infrastructures: is there a middle way between open and closed? Lee Dryburgh writes about the conference: “eComm focuses on the communication… Continue reading
Video: What do students think today? How do they see their education system?
via Communities Dominate Brands
Free cars for the world?
Shai Agassi has a plan for supplying free electric cars to the world. Not free as in freedom, but free as in free beer. However, the project also has a ecological rationale. Project Better Place introduces the topic: “How to make the world a better place?” …One electric car at a time. The planet is… Continue reading
Stefan Meretz: a critique of the copyfarleft proposal
In our blog and wiki, we are monitoring various attempts to ‘radicalize’ the existing free software/copyleft and Creative Commons type of licenses. For example, the IANG License and the User-Ownership approach. See our page on Equity-based licenses for access to debate about these licenses. One of the better known ideas comes from Dmitry Kleiner, and… Continue reading
Communities and Networks
I’m a big fan of Dave Pollard’s blog, How to Change the World. Communities and networks are concepts we often use, but do we really know their meaning? Here’s an older post/meditation by Dave on the topic, which you may want to read in full. Dave Pollard: “If you look at the origins of the… Continue reading
Prelaunch of Axel Bruns book on Produsage
I previously discussed this book favourably, after receiving the advanced manuscript. It is now out in pre-launch. Here is the message from the author. Axel Bruns: “As you’re probably aware, Peter Lang Publishing will launch my new book Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage in early 2008. The book introduces the… Continue reading
On anoptism, true distributed architectures and the need for Real Social networks
Amongst the people I admire and have met are to French persons: Francois Rey and Olivier Auber. I visited Francois in his home in Carpentras, a very memorable experience, and Olivier came to visit me recently with his family in Chiang Mai, where we had extremely fruitful discussions. What they share in common is a… Continue reading
Replacing Private-Benefit Corporations by Public-Benefit Corporations
David Korten has a proposal to replace the Private-Benefit Corporations by Public-Benefit Corporations. Read the whole proposal here. For background: 1) read this critique of the personhood of corporations 2) a proposal for group corporations 3) Peter Barnes proposal to use trusts to manage common property David Korten: “The private-benefit corporation is an institution granted… Continue reading
The class structure of peer production
Readers may remember my own take on the lines of tension and class structures in the social web and peer production generally, which appeared in Re-public. I have a page monitoring various ‘class theories’ here, and they are also monitored through a tag in Delicious. Here is another interesting take, from the same essay by… Continue reading
High switching costs do not create media monopolies
We have explained before, how walled garden approaches are being replaced by strategies of community building that rely on switching costs. In a post I had overlooked so far, Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 makes an important observation about the power dynamics around switching costs. Concerning the Facebook ‘Beacon debacle’, he argues that what happened… Continue reading
Announcing: a new P2P Meme Mapping project for 2008
Click here for the larger version of the above graphic. Our p2pfoundation.net wiki has been growing by leaps and bounds in 2007. Our December 30 statistics page informs us that the wiki “now contains 6,360 total pages in the database of which there are 4,360 pages that are probably legitimate content pages”. These have generated… Continue reading