"I've been noticing that there are old analogue technologies (pen and paper, the cassette player/recorder, Popsicle sticks and glue), that offer unique qualities that the relevant technologies available on the web don't provide - they have a flexibility that can add to ones creative functionality. The utilization of these analogue devices act as a signature of human presence - they are a part of a physical dynamic - they thus guarantee individuality in the web. This I think also produces an ethereal human quality in the mix that cannot be formula-ized. It creates a fingerprint (in a good way) of people input - human data.
I think it adds a fifth dimension to the Platform Commons cornerstones - a human dimension - a Spirit Commons. A Ying Cornerstone to the Automata Cornerstone Yang."
Applications emerging in Web 2.0 are creating content that is beginning to form the Cornerstones of the Next platform. I'm calling these Cornerstones "Platform Commons".
Several layers of these 'Commons' already exist, but we are unaware of them as we work the internet with our new-fangled applications.
For example, humans 'typing' over the past 10 years have created an Information Commons; the sum of human knowledge, science, art, culture. The first data came from the centres of higher learning, professors and undergrads who uploaded and organized data to use in teaching and research. Then Tim Berners-Lee thought it would be a good idea to link the whole world, to better work in his job, at CERN, so he suggested www protocols, and the internet was born.
Now the data stream and the human need/ability to organize stuff came piling in; email, daily online media, government websites, porn, the bloggosphere. Together these things connected, constitute a Platform Commons - upon which Web 2.0 flowered.
I've gleaned this map from reading a little at O'Reilly Radar. Tim O'Reilly coined the term Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is a set of understandings that have propelled the growth of the internet to where we are today. In Tim O'Reilly's words,
"Chief among our insights was that "the network as platform" means far more than just offering old applications via the network ("software as a service"); it means building applications that literally get better the more people use them, harnessing network effects not only to acquire users, but also to learn from them and build on their contributions."
Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle have now out lined an intuitive vision of the next phase in the growth of the internet. The vision summery is "WebSquared: Web 2.0 Five Years On".
My 'flower on Web 2.0' idea is my way of putting it; this flower is in the process of exponential growth, it's becoming a field of flowers ney, a world of flowers. A Hippie I am not, but I'll accept my own metaphor, I kinda like it. It speaks to what Tim O'Reilly said in January 2009, "Do stuff that matters."
My idea, after some but careful reading is that this WebSquared period will build the platform that will support the next thing that the web is becoming, something still 10 or so years ahead and unfathomable now.
I build maps like this to help me formulate and express ideas, from it I have gleaned a few new metrics about where we are, and where we might be going...
Now, social networking is building a new Platform Commons. Together with the hand-held internet or 'always-on' technology, (Blackberry was first-big; I-Phone later but neater) with sensors: up-down, position, inertia, a camera 'eye' and 'ears' - and an identity - through real time networking of all available data in the Google search colossus - a new Platform Commons is forming and it has unique characteristics.
I call it an Automata Commons. It's a new kind of flower on the platform. The Platform Atomata Commons seems like a scary one to me, it's all machine. It automatically inputs data that the user is unaware of, it uses these sensors to input data It chooses is relevant, based on software that's learning what it thinks You think is relevant... .
A counter point to this automata type data is in the offing thankfully. I've been noticing that there are old analogue technologies (pen and paper, the cassette player/recorder, popsicle sticks and glue), that offer unique qualities that the relevant technologies available on the web don't provide - they have a flexibility that can add to ones creative functionality. The utilization of these analogue devices act as a signature of human presence - they are a part of a physical dynamic - they thus guarantee individuality in the web. This I think also produces an ethereal human quality in the mix that cannot be formula-ized. It creates a fingerprint (in a good way) of people input - human data.
I think it adds a fifth dimension to the Platform Commons cornerstones - a human dimension - a Spirit Commons. A Ying Cornerstone to the Automata Cornerstone Yang
I think we might all really need this idea right now; things seem to be spiraling in complexity a little too fast. It getting crazy. Friends of mine who I Know have brains are hiding inside Facebook playing games, I haven't seen them out here for months. Occasionally I get a message from the robot holding a friend of mine: "Colin has just gotten a free bag of fertilizer at the county fair."
Twitter, on the other hand, is a brilliant application and I think it will be an important part of something greater. I hope the bank that gave Twitter.com the tooling-up money they needed - when it started to explode to Facebook proportions - don't expect to get that money back soon. I think monetizing Twitter right now is going to be difficult for two reasons;
- First, it needs to be left to it's own emergence - the Twitter community still hasn't decided what it's going to be.
- Secondly until the real Twitter emerges, pin pointing targets and long tailing them will be difficult.
Add to that the current economic conditions. Advertisers can not tolerate many practice tries - the ads will either work or advertising revenues will plummet. Twitter is concise because of it's brevity; choosing who to follow and who is spam is easy. Ads will have to be relevant and pointed at the right people or they'll have little effect.
I think the culture of Twitter users understands these fundamentals better than the brain-trust at Twitter does. Last year Twitter tried to insert ads that looked like Tweets, the community reacted with a vengeance. They stopped.
This may be a time when users of social media begin to pull back their use a bit; get back to the things they know - a little terra firma - like talking on the cell or emailing your mom - or good 'old' blogging? 8-).
mh
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