[via Social Synergy Weblog] Wired reports on an overview of the Assignment Zero Pro-Am Journalism project. Assignment Zero described itself as: “Inspired by the open-source movement, this is an attempt to bring journalists together with people in the public who can help cover a story. It’s a collaboration among NewAssignment.Net, Wired, and those who choose… Continue reading
Is California leading the way to a new decentralized future?
I am very excited about this blog entry about a paper by Jonathan Taplin, about the profound significance of what is happening in California. Here is how the document starts, just to give you a taste of what it is about: “Something important is happening in California. A profound experiment in Federalism, led by a… Continue reading
Integral discussions on peer to peer economics
The Open Integral blog, which usually has in-depth conversations around the theme of integral spirituality (i.e. a forum for integral philosophers who want to stay independent or critical from Ken Wilber’s increasingly authoritarian version of it), recently started a discussion on emerging integral economic systems and practices. It started around a discussion of the ethical… Continue reading
Building more onramps as a competitive strategy
I’m continuing my investigations into the laws of asymmetric competition. See our recent entries on the open API strategy of Facebook, and our article on ‘relinquishing control’ citing Flickr. This example features a discussion of why Twitter made it big time, after languishing for a certain amount of time as a smaller niche application. The… Continue reading
Facebook as the people platform of the web
The recent evolution of Facebook is a very important development. I often cite it in the context of the laws of asymmetric competition, which I have summarized elsewhere as follows: 1) if a for-profit entity based on proprietary software, with limited innovation based on exchange value and for just maintaining an edge, and without community… Continue reading
Relinquishing control as a competitive strategy
This is a good update with examples on what I call the laws of asymmetric competition, meaning that open/free, participatory and commons-oriented business strategies are key competitive drivers of netarchical capitalism. I recommend reading the full entry by Peter Merholz of Adaptive Path which mentions several examples and insightful comments. Excerpt: “Again and again, the… Continue reading
Summary: What P2P means for the world of tomorrow
I have been co-organizing, with Prof. Rajani Kanth, a Congress for Planetary Initiatives, which will be held in Salt Lake City from August 24 to 26, 2007. Unfortunately, due to current financial limitations, I may not be able to attend myself, so as an alternative, I have proposed the following summary of P2P theses, to… Continue reading
Par cum pari: Charter for peer to peer ethics and human responsibilities
Anthony Judge, formerly from the Union of International Associatons which has done fantastic documentary work such as an encyclopedia of human problems and solutions (you have to see it to believe it, it is a massive database of really useful information), is now retired but still a very prolific writer, whose complex essay writing we… Continue reading
P2P Theory as a third position towards the potential of networked participation
This piece is a reaction to the thesis of Ulises Mejias on the limits of Networked Participation, which I have also summarized here. I recommend that you read either one as background to this intervention. It becomes increasingly clear to me that there two major positions about the potential for participation and that P2P Theory… Continue reading
How Open Source Biology will supercede Darwinian biology
Freeman Dyson has a thought provoking essay in the New York Review of Books, about the Future of Biology. It’s second section, citing the work of biologist Carl Woese, predicts a return to the pre-Darwinian era of horizontal gene transfer and widespread human hacking of species. Here’s a constructed citation from the Slashdot summary: “[We… Continue reading
Towards a world of open design and built-only capitalism?
One of the highlights of my last lecture tour in Europe, was meeting Franz Nahrada, the pioneer, amongst other things, of the concept of Global Villages, which proposes the “combining the immaterial wealth of global connectedness and peer design with the material wealth of local natural resource cycles and human community.” In other words, it… Continue reading
Finally: a P2P Theory of Power?
We have mentioned Jeff Vail’s Theory of Power book before, and featured large extracts on how he sees the relationship between hierarchies and rhizomes, which you can find here. I have yet to read the book however, and Dave Pollard’s summary made me realize what a significant contribution it is for a P2P theory of… Continue reading
A critique of connectivist education theory
I recently found an excellent an in-depth review of George Siemens’ book on connectivism, written by Mark Landy, and which was first published May 2007 in The Knowledge Tree An e-Journal of Learning Innovation, Edition 13, by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework In the review, Landy wonders whether the book is correct in assuming that… Continue reading
The Coming Dark Age
I often say during my presentations that the peer to peer logic of distributed networks, is a way out of the present crisis, a re-integration to a higher level of complexity. The alternative, since infinite material growth systems are untenable, would be a regress to a lower form of complexity, i.e. a dis-organisation of society… Continue reading
The impact and challenge of networked politics
I recently discovered a website on Networked Politics, and found this useful summary of the political effects and potential of the internet, by “Hilary’. Excerpt: “The leap in the technological possibilities of such communication on a multi-media basis have had several (obvious, I guess) consequences for the potential of the movements, networks and conflicts that… Continue reading
Mark Pesce, Mark Deuze and Trebor Scholz on sharing vs. profits
As a companion to the excerpt below, I recommended reading the conversation/interview between Trebor Scholz of the Institute of Distributed Creativity, with Mark Deuze, a keen observer of participatory developments. Against the positioning of Trebor who insists of the exploitation of the sharers by capital, Deuze gives a nuanced and complex picture of the mutual… Continue reading