Follow up: Web 2.0 creating world peace

I have posted before musing if Blogging could create world peace. Another weekend rolls around and am prompted to ask a similar question. Can Web 2.0 create world peace?

Check out WikiLeaks (referred to me by Cass!).

From the homepage:

Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources

We believe that transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government and stronger democracies. Many governments would benefit from increased scrutiny by the world community, as well as their own people. We believe this scrutiny requires information. Historically that information has been costly - in terms of human life and human rights. Wikileaks will facilitate safety in the ethical leaking movement.

Seems like they can't wait for Web 2.0 platforms to create organic and measured transparency in government institutions - they are going to force it by providing an anonymous platform.

We often say that new forms of media lower the barrier to entry for participants to have a voice and therefore strengthens democracy. And it's clear that this latest iteration of our media platforms is the most democratic of all. So does democracy include complete transparency?

This is a philosophical question as much as a logistical one. There have been books written about total transparency - and what such a world would look like. Some paint a very rosy picture.

Interesting Concept. I can't decide if it will result in anarchy or the end of corruption (or the beginning of new ways to hide corruption!).

What do you think?

What is Media 2.0?

There have been some great questions about Media 2.0 over the last few days so I thought I would join the discussion.

First: What is the best name for the changing media landscape?

Some call it Social Media, others (including me) call it Media 2.0. Jeremiah Owyang asks the question today on his blog "Hate the term Social Media? Help come up with a better term".

Well I think we already have a better term - Media 2.0.

Jeremiah says he hates the 2.0 thing. Well I say too bad. It's great! Why is it great? Because the change in media is not just about social. If it's about one thing then it's about Personal.

It just so happens that we are each (personally) social beings and therefore a symptom of more personal media is social features.

But personal manifests itself in other ways including:

• More personal choice (more niche content providers including/especially participant created content)
• More personalization (in the form of recommendations and attention based filters)
• More personal transparent (public is the new private)
• More personal presentation (choose your browser, aggregator, device, color)
• More personal scheduling (choose the time and date of the content - time-shifted/on-demand content).
• More personal connections - SOCIAL
  

But there are other aspects of the changing media landscape. Convergence, DRM (that's not very social!), Identity etc. So that's why I call it Media 2.0. It's a major new version of a very old idea. Personal human connection.

In the comments of the post he writes:

Chris, I’m not a fan of “2.0″ anything. What’s happening is the natural evolution of the web, it’s nothing really new is it?

This is why I like the term “Social Media”

Important: Social Media is about People.

I responded:

Social is a symptom of Personal - but whatever your definition - to try to foreshadow the destination/goal before we get there only limits the discussion/possibilities.

2.0 gives people freedom to decide what the next generation will look like while still giving them a buzzword to rally around.

The community and the market will decide what the 2.0 means - and I think you will find that ’social’ is only part of that outcome.

Second: Read/Write Web has an article about the mainstream media using more and more Web 2.0 technologies.

That's because they are becoming Media 2.0 - like the rest of us.

I am a bit disappointed they didn't make the link and mention the Media 2.0 Workgroup's launch at the same time.

Third: There has been an overwhelming response to the Media 2.0 workgroup.

So we have had to stop taking email nominations and changed it over to a wiki. The Wiki also has a page about the workgroup's goals and selection criteria. Nominate your favorite voices.

Also, while the people listed on the page are great voices to help spotlight the discussion, we will start to find ways to bring everyone into the conversation in more democratic ways... stay tuned.

For now I'll give you a hint and say start tagging your content Media 2.0 ;)

More soon...

Who invented RSS?

Dave Winer says RSS wasn't invented.

He says:

"It wasn't invented. Something else happened, something harder than invention, imho -- an activity that we don't have a word for in the English language."

I wonder what that word could be...

Maybe it evolved. Maybe the universe gifted it to us. Maybe the people at the right time and at the right place knew in their bones that something like it was necessary and decided that making it work was more important than owning it.

I particularly like this paragraph:

"RSS, unlike other XML inventions, has made a difference. If you want to understand what made RSS happen, it's the innovation, evangelism and commitment that was behind it, not the invention, because I said before, and as everyone seems to agree, it wasn't invented. But we lack a good word for the other stuff, so sheez, what's the big deal if they substitute "invention" for all that? I've looked the other way. But to say I was the "self-proclaimed" inventor is just wrong, I just nod my head when others say it, because I'm tired of arguing."

These sorts of things happen (on scale) rarely. But when they do great things happen.

As a result of his post, I also did a little re-reading on the Wikipedia entry for RSS.

I am not dumb - I am wired

Chris Anderson recently posted a pair of articles about a Transparent Wired Magazine. What would that look like? The first post resembles my Media 2.0 roadmap. Read Post 1 and Post 2 here.

Post 2, is far more interesting however. He talks about revealing the internal staff hierarchy to the world, exposing internal staff wikis and scratchpads, publishing drafts and transcripts as they are created, giving users the power to rate comments and include them as part of the story, use their recently acquisition of reddit (or similar paradigm) to actually decide what makes it into the magazine, and my personal favorite - wikify everything.

Imagine that - a place where the articles on a given topic no longer represent a moment in time, but rather an evolving commentary on a given subject. Is this actually feasible? Would the result become unbearably long and detailed?

Something David Dobbs writes in response is very interesting...

Some of the unease rises from concerns that might seem vain or proud: I like to think that in many cases I really AM more qualified than others to write about a given subject and (more to the point) that doing a ton of research on a subject — reading hundreds of pages and talking to highly informed and involved people —gives me a deeper and more nuanced view of a subject that gives the resulting story a certain priority in placement and attention. Indeed, that's precisely what publishing is all about.

He does go on to admit:

(Yes, it's also about power and hoarding information that can then be packaged and sold, yada yada. I'll raise my hand and confess I'm almost certainly unwittingly doing all those things -- but then, so does a farmer or carpenter or plumber.)

I would argue that recently (and maybe for long, long time) in the 24 hour news cycle, the TV media especially has completely failed to provide any real context and neunce to ongoing stories. They seem to glob onto any piece of sensational news and fail to give it any broader meaning.

They use prejudicial words without giving any thought to their bias and they fail to consider the real impacts for real people.

As Chris is suggesting in his posts, Wired and other print journalists could be great at creating over-arching summaries or focusing a community around a topic and then summarizing the conversation at the end. Nuance, however, seems to come from bloggers - not professionals.

He also argues against publishing transcripts because...

Lots of ums and ungrammatical sentences and sentence fragments. Lots of digressions, side comments, and stupid failed wisecracks. All that clutter of broken strings and floating particles makes little sense if encountered on paper by a reader who wasn't present but makes complete sense (well, nearly complete sense) to the person who was there in the conversation.

I think that, unfortunately, Mr Dobbs is making the same mistake that most mainstream media outlets (including TV networks) make. They think we are dumb.

Transcripts reveal something about an interviewee that the resulting article cannot. It reveals character, personality and context.

I have been interviewed many times and, with no disrespect to my journalist friends, my quotes are often taken out of context for the purposes of narrative flow. That's fine for articles - but in this new transparent world - I'd like the option of digging deeper.

Is Advertising Dead?

In response to my post "Carefactor: 100" Scientaestubique posted a comment. It was a great question so I thought I would post it here along with my reply. What do you think? Reply in the comments.

scientaestubique said...

Is advertising as a paradigm now obselete?

Wikipedia defines Advertising as:
the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor.

Do we really need old style ads anymore?

Generations X & Y don't absorb advertising like they used to, however they consume more media than ever.

Maybe companies could try producing really good media about their products and services and skip the spruking altogether.

More signal, less noise.

Chris said...

I think fist that Marketing (paying someone to find ways to get people to notice) is always going to be around.

The requirements of the job will, however, change rapidly over time.

The most sophisticated marketers today know that marketing is not necessarily about shaping a clever message as it is about shaping a clever product that speaks for itself.

Look to CitizenAgency.com and ResonancePartnership (plus others) for that sort of thinking.

As for advertising, I think that it can sometimes be argued that people don't know they need something until they are introduced to the idea. Like marketing, however, it needs to change shape from yelling at people into something more akin to a conversation. Read: Cluetrain Manifesto.

Speaking of creating media for your product - there was a series of short stories directed by famous directors that were effectively BMW commercials. I believe it was in response to BWM loosing the deal to appear in one of the 007 movies. Was fascinating to watch.

What other forms of media would you suggest they produce though? I don’t really want to watch an episode about the sale on down the road...

"can one man buy a discount shirt... against.. all... odds"

haha