[sociate] Man, the world's spinning fast!
- From: "Jerry Michalski" <jerry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Sociate News" <sociate@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 14:49:37 -0400
Let's see... first I read the excellent
<http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/aug2004/nf20040811_1095_db_81.h
tm> interview with Howard Rheingold (may require sub.) in BusinessWeek, in
which he says, among other wonderful things:
Q: Where do you see the social revolution you've been talking about going
next?
A: It's too early to say. The question is: What does it point toward? Some
kind of collective action...in which the individuals aren't consciously
cooperating. A market is a great example as a mechanism for determining
price based on demand. People aren't saying, "I'm contributing to the
market," [they say they're] just selling something. But it adds up.
Q: Can you give me some specific examples of what you mean, beyond the
market?
A: Google is based on the emergent choices of people who link. Nobody is
really thinking, "I'm now contributing to Google's page rank." What they're
thinking is, "This link is something my readers would really be interested
in." They're making an individual judgment that, in the aggregate, turns out
to be a pretty good indicator of what's the best source.
Then there's open source [software]. Steve Weber, a political economist at
UC Berkeley, sees open source as an economic means of production that turns
the free-rider problem to its advantage. All the people who use the resource
but don't contribute to it just build up a larger user base. And if a very
tiny percentage of them do anything at all -- like report a bug -- then
those free riders suddenly become an asset.
and
Q: Where will we see that happen?
A: We now have a world out there where billions of people have in their
pockets technologies for innovation that far surpass what entire industries
had just a couple decades ago. If you're talking about the communications
industry, your innovation is happening with 15-year-old girls. That was
where [Japanese cellular network provider NTT] DoCoMo won big. I think the
total number of text messages sent is approaching 100 billion a month. Of
course, the revenues on that are only a fraction of a cent each, but
multiply a fraction of a cent by 100 billion, and it begins to add up to
real money.
The next link I follow is from a conversation with the generous and
ingenious Lou Rosenfeld. It leads me to <http://ok-cancel.com/> OK/Cancel,
a site about design for usability, one of whose creators,
<http://www.tomchi.com/> Tom Chi, just won a <http://www.laptopbattle.org/>
Laptop Battle (no, he didn't beat anyone over the head with his). Talk about
the means of production now being in everyone's hands!
posted by Jerry Michalski at 2:28
<http://www.sociate.com/blog/archives/2004_08_01_archive.html#10923473665098
1479> PM
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