Question: What happens when the data flow is asymmetrical – but in favor of creators? What Happens when communities dominate brands?

What do say when you read something life affirming – scary – radical – informative?

You tell your friends from Kevin Kelly at wired some highlights of a very provocative piece of thinking

Via Simon Waldman

Here are some highlights …

The accretion of tiny marvels can numb us to the arrival of the stupendous. Today, at any Net terminal, you can get: an amazing variety of music and video, an evolving encyclopedia, weather forecasts, help wanted ads, satellite images of anyplace on Earth, up-to-the-minute news from around the globe, tax forms, TV guides, road maps with driving directions, real-time stock quotes, telephone numbers, real estate listings with virtual walk-throughs, pictures of just about anything, sports scores, places to buy almost anything, records of political contributions, library catalogs, appliance manuals, live traffic reports, archives to major newspapers – all wrapped up in an interactive index that really works.

ebay
Take eBay. In some 4,000 days, eBay has gone from marginal Bay Area experiment in community markets to the most profitable spinoff of hypertext. At any one moment, 50 million auctions race through the site. An estimated half a million folks make their living selling through Internet auctions. Ten years ago I heard skeptics swear nobody would ever buy a car on the Web. Last year eBay Motors sold $11 billion worth of vehicles. EBay’s 2001 auction of a $4.9 million private jet would have shocked anyone in 1995 – and still smells implausible today.

Nowhere in Ted Nelson’s convoluted sketches of hypertext transclusion did the fantasy of a global flea market appear. Especially as the ultimate business model! He hoped to franchise his Xanadu hypertext systems in the physical world at the scale of a copy shop or caf? – you would go to a store to do your hypertexting. Xanadu would take a cut of the action.

Instead, we have an open global flea market that handles 1.4 billion auctions every year and operates from your bedroom. Users do most of the work; they photograph, catalog, post, and manage their own auctions. And they police themselves; while eBay and other auction sites do call in the authorities to arrest serial abusers, the chief method of ensuring fairness is a system of user-generated ratings. Three billion feedback comments can work wonders.

Peer to peer flows of communication
What we all failed to see was how much of this new world would be manufactured by users, not corporate interests.

Open Source
The open source software movement is another example. Key ingredients of collaborative programming – swapping code, updating instantly, recruiting globally – didn’t work on a large scale until the Web was woven. Then software became something you could join, either as a beta tester or as a coder on an open source project. The clever “view source” browser option let the average Web surfer in on the act. And anyone could rustle up a link – which, it turns out, is the most powerful invention of the decade.

Connectivity
Linking unleashes involvement and interactivity at levels once thought unfashionable or impossible. It transforms reading into navigating and enlarges small actions into powerful forces. For instance, hyperlinks made it much easier to create a seamless, scrolling street map of every town. They made it easier for people to refer to those maps. And hyperlinks made it possible for almost anyone to annotate, amend, and improve any map embedded in the Web. Cartography has gone from spectator art to participatory democracy.

Participation
The electricity of participation nudges ordinary folks to invest huge hunks of energy and time into making free encyclopedias, creating public tutorials for changing a flat tire, or cataloging the votes in the Senate. More and more of the Web runs in this mode. One study found that only 40 percent of the Web is commercial. The rest runs on duty or passion.

From Industrial Age to Generation C
Coming out of the industrial age, when mass-produced goods outclassed anything you could make yourself, this sudden tilt toward consumer involvement is a complete Lazarus move: “We thought that died long ago.” The deep enthusiasm for making things, for interacting more deeply than just choosing options, is the great force not reckoned 10 years ago. This impulse for participation has upended the economy and is steadily turning the sphere of social networking – smart mobs, hive minds, and collaborative action – into the main event.

What could be a better mark of irreversible acceptance than adoption by the Amish? I was visiting some Amish farmers recently. They fit the archetype perfectly: straw hats, scraggly beards, wives with bonnets, no electricity, no phones or TVs, horse and buggy outside. They have an undeserved reputation for resisting all technology, when actually they are just very late adopters. Still, I was amazed to hear them mention their Web sites.

“Amish Web sites?” I asked.

“For advertising our family business. We weld barbecue grills in our shop.”

“Yes, but ”

“Oh, we use the Internet terminal at the public library. And Yahoo!”

I knew then the battle was over.

Communities Dominate Brands
“By 2014, use of the Internet will increase the size of people’s social networks far beyond what has traditionally been the case.”

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Are you a Socialight?

I am now on a quest to find out just how far our theories of communities replacing advertising as the primary medium for businesses to connect with their audiences holds water.

This research has already begun and we are collecting some very interesting data and information.

Todays offering is a company called Socialight

A little hard to explain to best to let the guys do it for themsleves

Using Socialight
Creating and Receiving StickyShadows?

Each StickyShadow that you create can be made public or available only to specific people – like your Contacts or members of your Groups.

As you travel around the world, you can find StickyShadows that are tied to the places you go. The system can notify you via your mobile phone any time you step on a StickyShadow. As your phone buzzes, it will display the media, along with some information about the person who set it. From there, you can instantly respond, leave your own StickyShadow or just move on.

How’s it Used?
- I leave a note for all my friends at the mall to let them know where I’m hanging out. All my friends in the area see it.
- A woman shows all her close friends the tree under which she had her first kiss.
- An entire neighborhood gets together and documents all the unwanted litter they find in an effort to share ownership of a community problem.
- A food-lover uses Socialight to share her thoughts on the amazing vanilla milkshakes at a new shop.
- The neighborhood historian creates her own walking tour for others to follow.
- A group of friends create their own scavenger hunt.
- A tourist takes place-based notes about stores in a shopping district, only for himself, for a time when he returns to the same city.
- A small business places StickyShadows that its customers would be interested in finding.
- A band promotes an upcoming show by leaving a StickyShadow outside the venue.

We’d like to let people share their experiences in these ways, and to discover new ways of sharing, communicating and connecting.

I had a go and because Socialight hooks up to Google maps you can be INCH PERFECT with where you leave your hanging data.

Adriana Cronin-Lukas has influenced my thinking recently wher she talks about replacing the word consumer with audience . Naturally you change your mindset as to how exactly you engage your audience vs. persuading your consumer.

The experience for both will be richer and more memorable.

So anyway back to the research and the sticky shadows. I like the examples Socialight give. Its on the edge but its viable. Someone recently said pioneers get shot – and thats true. But, also without the pioneers there would not be progress.

There would be no: James Dyson, Robert louis Stevenson, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Tim Berners Lee, the internet, no mobile phone, no mass production of cars or other goods, no advances in science, society or government.

What we are witnessing is a whole bunch of pioneers doing a whole bunch of pioneering things.

That affect everybody. Its up to us to make it for better or for worse.

But my belief is that communities are more self regulating, more optimistic, more self organising, more consensual, more sharing, more discursive, more engaged – than tradtional notions of mass media broadcast.

Or as tomi says – Sharing information is power

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Posted in: Trends

Are you a Socialight?

I am now on a quest to find out just how far our theories of communities replacing advertising as the primary medium for businesses to connect with their audiences holds water.

This research has already begun and we are collecting some very interesting data and information.

Todays offering is a company called Socialight

A little hard to explain to best to let the guys do it for themsleves

Using Socialight
Creating and Receiving StickyShadows?

Each StickyShadow that you create can be made public or available only to specific people – like your Contacts or members of your Groups.

As you travel around the world, you can find StickyShadows that are tied to the places you go. The system can notify you via your mobile phone any time you step on a StickyShadow. As your phone buzzes, it will display the media, along with some information about the person who set it. From there, you can instantly respond, leave your own StickyShadow or just move on.

How’s it Used?
- I leave a note for all my friends at the mall to let them know where I’m hanging out. All my friends in the area see it.
- A woman shows all her close friends the tree under which she had her first kiss.
- An entire neighborhood gets together and documents all the unwanted litter they find in an effort to share ownership of a community problem.
- A food-lover uses Socialight to share her thoughts on the amazing vanilla milkshakes at a new shop.
- The neighborhood historian creates her own walking tour for others to follow.
- A group of friends create their own scavenger hunt.
- A tourist takes place-based notes about stores in a shopping district, only for himself, for a time when he returns to the same city.
- A small business places StickyShadows that its customers would be interested in finding.
- A band promotes an upcoming show by leaving a StickyShadow outside the venue.

We’d like to let people share their experiences in these ways, and to discover new ways of sharing, communicating and connecting.

I had a go and because Socialight hooks up to Google maps you can be INCH PERFECT with where you leave your hanging data.

Adriana Cronin-Lukas has influenced my thinking recently wher she talks about replacing the word consumer with audience . Naturally you change your mindset as to how exactly you engage your audience vs. persuading your consumer.

The experience for both will be richer and more memorable.

So anyway back to the research and the sticky shadows. I like the examples Socialight give. Its on the edge but its viable. Someone recently said pioneers get shot – and thats true. But, also without the pioneers there would not be progress.

There would be no: James Dyson, Robert louis Stevenson, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Tim Berners Lee, the internet, no mobile phone, no mass production of cars or other goods, no advances in science, society or government.

What we are witnessing is a whole bunch of pioneers doing a whole bunch of pioneering things.

That affect everybody. Its up to us to make it for better or for worse.

But my belief is that communities are more self regulating, more optimistic, more self organising, more consensual, more sharing, more discursive, more engaged – than tradtional notions of mass media broadcast.

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EMI sees jump in digital downloads

The FT 17 November 2005 reported EMI saw music downloads go up significantly/ A whacking 142% jump in digital revenue to ?44.6m

Eric Nicholi estimated digital sales would make up 25% of revenues by 2010.

I wonder what Tomi thinks of that?

What year is it when the physical CD no longer exists. Or, becomes so irrelevant it does not really matter anymore?

As we know digital redefines value, and distribution for example.

It also allows us to rethink a different way of going to market, and creating value for customers in new and exciting ways.

We believe this is the start of something far more fundamental.

Expect Mr Nicholi to revise his estimates before 2010.

Remember the Artic Monkeys got to Number 1 in the charts without any help from any record company. It was purely the wisdom of the crowd that they actively engaged with, sharing with them their songs and, encouraging the ever so important peer to peer flows of communication that today can redefine success or failure.

what does that mean for record companies?

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Posted in: Strategy

Rethinking the news

Interesting thought piece by Jeff Jarvis on the state of the newspaper industry

The American Press Institute puts $2 million into a project to find new business models for newspapers but I think they make a few mistakes: First, it’s not about new models for newspapers; it’s about new models for news. Second, the august group they gather for the task, though smart and experienced, are all from the big companies and the old ways. The newspaper industry’s worst fault is that it is insular and rejects new blood. This would have been a chance to find new people (and no, I don’t mean me) who are doing new things in new ways. That, ladies and gentlemen, is where the new models are going to come from, not from the old ways.

But then you only have to look at OhMyNews with its 26,000 citizen reporters as a clue.

Or have a read of life is local

Or even consider how one might rethink the classifieds to offer greater value in a digital world since that is where a newspapers profits come from.

And the Big Blog Company has an interesting post to add to the debate

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If you can’t beat ‘em – join ‘em

Must P2P TV: NBC Strikes Online File-Sharing Deal

by Wayne Friedman

LEAVING NO STONE UNTURNED IN the world of alternative windows for TV programming, now NBC Universal has struck a deal with Wurld Media, a peer-to-peer computer/Internet service.

Wurld Media’s legal peer-to-peer service, Peer Impact, would offer up to 75 to 100 NBC Universal movie titles, commercial-free, for rental on a 24-hour basis such as “Ray,” “The Motorcycle Diaries,” “Meet the Fockers,” and “The Bourne Supremacy,” as well as upcoming premieres of “The Skeleton Key,” “Cinderella Man,” and “The Forty Year Old Virgin.” NBC is the first movie studio to strike a deal with Wurld Media, and represents the company’s efforts to offer a legal alternative to digital piracy. “This agreement is a significant step forward in our goal to capitalize on the myriad possibilities of new digital-media services, in a way that allows us to safeguard our content from illegal distribution,” said Bob Wright, chairman and CEO of NBC Universal, in a press release.

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Innovation in schools

I came across this site this morning The department for education and skills

The Innovation Community can be accessed by over 50,000 practitioners in education. It is generating lively discussion that is contributing to knowledge sharing and the exchange of innovative practice.

The Community is open to all practitioners and offers the opportunity to:
talk to practitioners from all sectors of education, to share innovative ideas – there are a wide range of debates currently running in the Community; engage with experts in their field in the hotseat;
collaborate with colleagues on projects and engage in action research; raise your own issues for debate.

To join, the first step is to register for the Innovation Community. Once registered you can join the conversations by logging into talk2learn on the NCSL website and choosing Innovation Unit from the drop-down list at the top of the page.

We’ve created 3 new conversations in the Community for you to talk to others about your ideas:

in the Online Innovation Cafe talk to someone about an initial idea you’d like to develop;
in Innovation Noticeboard find someone else who has been working on a similar idea;
in The Power to Innovate find out and discuss how this piece of legislation might help you innovate.
Are you interested in setting up a federation, or are you already involved in one? Our new section on Federations on this site is a resource for federations compiled by practitioners. We aim to provide a gateway for everyone engaged in, or interested in creating, a school federation to share their knowledge and experience for the benefit of everyone in the system. Please tell others about your experiences and discuss federations with colleagues in our online Community discussion.

By sharing knowledge in these ways, you will enable other federations to flourish.

As my friend Tomi says, “Sharing knowledge is power.”

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The wisdom of Crowds: Dominate

I stumbled across this book just the other day.

The Wisdom of Crowds : Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations by James Surowiecki

What’s it all about. Here’s the theory

large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant?better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.

This seemingly counterintuitive notion has endless and major ramifications for how businesses operate, how knowledge is advanced, how economies are (or should be) organized and how we live our daily lives. With seemingly boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, economic behaviorism, artificial intelligence, military history and political theory to show just how this principle operates in the real world.

I think its another must read, but also again supports our theory that within 10 years community will replace advertising as the primary medium by which businesses will engage with the many people and grow as a consequence

The Chartered Institute of Marketing has become an advocate of our theories

Although wary of another book claiming that the world has forever changed, I have been won over by this deeply impressive book. Packed full of statistics, examples and case studies, the arguments are well supported and persuasive. The authors provide a comprehensive exploration of this emerging topic which is presently unrivalled. Thought-provoking and practical, you will be hard pressed to find a more challenging marketing book this year. – UK Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM)

You heard it here first!

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Class rooms without walls

Mobiles ring death knell for the PC

In a radical attempt to develop the concept of a ‘classroom without walls’, many UK schools are starting to abandon PCs in favour of mobile technology stated the Guardian on November 15th.

It is a radical attempt to develop the concept of a “classroom without walls”, or to extend the learning environment beyond the physical location of the centre and its opening hours. Instead of being tied to a desktop PC, its students, a mix of local pupils, their parents and members of the wider community, will shortly be loaned tiny, net-enabled palmtop computers and invited to take them home on short-term loans.

The article goes onto say

One reason for the change is an attempt to engage students with a technology that they feel more comfortable, even passionate, about. The new palmtop computers are really just upmarket mobile phones plus tiny qwerty keyboards and, according to the market research firm BMRB, 71% of 9- to 19-year-olds in the UK now have their own mobile phone. As any teacher will tell you, they need no encouragement to use them.

OK say the cynics, the kids are going to damge and nick the technology right?

Wrong

“In the last three years, we’ve had no equipment stolen. The environment we’ve tried to create is very adult and professional. And I think it’s an environment the pupils respect. The kids look after the stuff partially because they don’t want it to be taken away.” Indeed, one of the first things you notice on a visit to Highbury Grove is the complete absence of graffiti on the desks.

Islington’s experience is backed up by recent research by the Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media at the Institute of Education in London. Such schemes are “about making school relevant to what goes on outside school,” says David Buckingham, a professor of education at the institute.

Not only that but it has benefited staff as well

In fact, the students are not the only ones to benefit from greater flexibility. Last week, Islington implemented its first virtual staff meeting. “Everyone was at home,” says Davey. “We set up a forum, everyone could leave their comments. Everything on the agenda was discussed but over a period of seven hours. We now have an electronic record of the meeting and it’s all online. It reduces workload and adds flexibility to the job.

If you don’t get it yet – we are witnessing the supremacy of the community, which empowers everybody on a collective and individual basis in every avenue of life.

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Storming the Bastille

I read with great interest Jeff Jarvis in the Guardian on Monday his article annointed Chaos Spreads from the web to the streets

If you don’t read Jeff Jarvis I strongly urge you to do so. Its good strong coffee without milk or sugar.

Jeff’s piece also reminded of a recnet article that I had written for New media age entitled living in a consumers republic.

It was the reference to the Bastille that got the juices flowing.

Here is the opening riposte

What happens when the both the supply and demand structures that have served us so well over the last 50 years start to simultaneously decouple from our most recent past?

Well, we get a revolution or a ‘gradual evolving act of liberation.’ And, history tells us that once you have stormed the Bastille, you don’t really want to go back to your boring day job. In this instance, the day job is the consumer as an; uninformed, unconnected, passive, ignorant, non-participative, controlled individual that will happily consume what is put in front of them.

Traditional media is unbundling whilst the structural nature of consumption of information and content are in a state of flux ? Significantly, we are entering a world where content will be increasingly delivered through internet and internet-mobile-protocol-based networks that are non-linear, on-demand and entirely self-scheduled. In that world, the viewer ? not the broadcaster ? whoever that may be, will decide what is consumed, when, and how.

Moreover with the emergence and convergence of the mobile phone and the internet we suddenly have access to our peers, our friends, our colleagues and family members. And like ‘search’ that is changing peoples habits and attitudes. We are getting used to living in a connected age where we naturally draw on our participation in various networks for assistance, information and support.

Jeff in his edited highlights from I believe a very thought provoking piece, says

It’s anarchy. The long-oppressed masses are rioting. The old roles are confused, the old rules erased. Am I talking about the French riots or the internet? Both, of course. It is just my cheap, rhetorical trick to tie the two together. But the arrest last week of at least three young bloggers for allegedly using their sites to incite violence precisely highlights the confusion this new medium brings. So does a controversial government official’s use of internet search advertising to push his inflammatory agenda. And so does old French media’s fear that covering this explosive story would only favour the politicians they do not favour.

Taken together, this illustrates how media used to be all about control – with journalists and governments managing the messages – but now are all about the loss of control. The audience took over the internet and blurred all the old lines: where is that line now between witnessing and reporting, between communications and conspiracy, between inciting violence and expressing rage, between speech and crime?

You can read the whole piece here

Jeff, you do a fantastic job.

And remember, once you have stormed the Bastille, you don’t go back to your day job.

Mr Chirac and the rest of the French government, I hope, you are listening.

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Posted in: Politics