I just started reading Pierre Levy's "Collective Intelligence" and it got me thinking about digital identity, knowledge communities and knowledge networks, and how through these various channels, we as a people, are able to extend ourselves and our intelligent nature in democratically organized directions never before possible.
Chrisbook
This morning I read a post by Chris Brogan Superstar which spoke about the various things he would do if he could rebuild Facebook. Without even reading his list I knew I agreed with every point he was about to make. Not because I trust his opinions :) , but because a truly democratized digital persona, operating within the confines of our new digitized, social economy, should have the ability to define themselves, and the way in which they are able to define themselves in any way they see fit.
Sure, a platform needs to be able to be monetized and so does content (Brad Grier ponders this over at his blog) but that needs to be a secondary or even a tertiary thought, as a platform without mass will never be monetized anyhow. As someone in the ad industry I know this all too well!
Facebook As AOL 2.0
Here is a meme worth propagating. I first saw the link at Brogan's blog and then followed it over to Kottke.org:
Have a look at these two posts (ok, I am riding the long tail with these. They are a few weeks old):
Facebook is the New AOL
Facebook VS AOL Redux
I am going to reserve judgment on these posts for now and be content in my meme propagation. I really need to think more about these posts before commenting.
Sir Owyang Always Sheds The Light
Jeremiah Owyang wrote this:
"Facebook is a closed garden with one way doors. Data in, but no data out. With so many companies, startups, ecommerce companies building widgets for this platform did anyone stop to consider that they’re not letting data flow out?"
How can a truly democratized knowledge community thrive in a walled garden?
So What Does A Media Cir.us Think?
How can we maintain our digital identity and the digital identity of our knowledge community?
I love Facebook and think that it adds a lot of value. Yes, I can get a great deal of the same value through the organic platform that blogger's have created by leveraging various open source platforms, but will this ever scale to the point that I can truly achieve the type of collective intelligence that Pierre Levy says can only grow out of a intelligent knowledge communities or networks?
Many of the smartest people I know will never have a blog, don't care to use Twitter and cannot even pronounce Jaiku, and many of these people are individuals that I want in my pool of knowledge.
As much as I hate to say it, I have no strategy to achieve such a community other than a strategy that adopts simple rules (I recommend the essay Strategy As Simple Rules, as I have found it has influenced my business life as well as my personal life). Sometimes 100% definitive strategies serve as nothing more than blinders to experimentation and optimization.
What I am really trying to say is, I am going to keep my eyes open. Heed Jeremiah's warning and continually listen to my intelligent network.
Tags: jason kottke, kottke.org, Chris Brogan, Grasshoper Media, Pierre Levy, Blogging, Facebook, Knowledge Communities, Intelligent Networks, Strategy As Simply Rules, Digital Identity, Platform 2.0. AOL, AOL 2.0, Open Source, Walled Garden, Advertising, Brad Grier
Chrisbook
This morning I read a post by Chris Brogan Superstar which spoke about the various things he would do if he could rebuild Facebook. Without even reading his list I knew I agreed with every point he was about to make. Not because I trust his opinions :) , but because a truly democratized digital persona, operating within the confines of our new digitized, social economy, should have the ability to define themselves, and the way in which they are able to define themselves in any way they see fit.
Sure, a platform needs to be able to be monetized and so does content (Brad Grier ponders this over at his blog) but that needs to be a secondary or even a tertiary thought, as a platform without mass will never be monetized anyhow. As someone in the ad industry I know this all too well!
Facebook As AOL 2.0
Here is a meme worth propagating. I first saw the link at Brogan's blog and then followed it over to Kottke.org:
Have a look at these two posts (ok, I am riding the long tail with these. They are a few weeks old):
Facebook is the New AOL
Facebook VS AOL Redux
I am going to reserve judgment on these posts for now and be content in my meme propagation. I really need to think more about these posts before commenting.
Sir Owyang Always Sheds The Light
Jeremiah Owyang wrote this:
"Facebook is a closed garden with one way doors. Data in, but no data out. With so many companies, startups, ecommerce companies building widgets for this platform did anyone stop to consider that they’re not letting data flow out?"
How can a truly democratized knowledge community thrive in a walled garden?
So What Does A Media Cir.us Think?
How can we maintain our digital identity and the digital identity of our knowledge community?
I love Facebook and think that it adds a lot of value. Yes, I can get a great deal of the same value through the organic platform that blogger's have created by leveraging various open source platforms, but will this ever scale to the point that I can truly achieve the type of collective intelligence that Pierre Levy says can only grow out of a intelligent knowledge communities or networks?
Many of the smartest people I know will never have a blog, don't care to use Twitter and cannot even pronounce Jaiku, and many of these people are individuals that I want in my pool of knowledge.
As much as I hate to say it, I have no strategy to achieve such a community other than a strategy that adopts simple rules (I recommend the essay Strategy As Simple Rules, as I have found it has influenced my business life as well as my personal life). Sometimes 100% definitive strategies serve as nothing more than blinders to experimentation and optimization.
What I am really trying to say is, I am going to keep my eyes open. Heed Jeremiah's warning and continually listen to my intelligent network.
Tags: jason kottke, kottke.org, Chris Brogan, Grasshoper Media, Pierre Levy, Blogging, Facebook, Knowledge Communities, Intelligent Networks, Strategy As Simply Rules, Digital Identity, Platform 2.0. AOL, AOL 2.0, Open Source, Walled Garden, Advertising, Brad Grier