ecopolis

Dmytri Kleiner & Brian Wyrick wroted a really interesting article about the real impact of Web 2.0, where what shines is not always gold…

Here some excerpt from that text that you can find here.

The hype surrounding Web 2.0’s ability to democratise content production obscures its centralisation of ownership and the means of sharing. Dmytri Kleiner & Brian Wyrick expose Web 2.0 as a venture capitalist’s paradise where investors pocket the value produced by unpaid users, ride on the technical innovations of the free software movement and kill off the decentralising potential of peer-to-peer production.

Tim Berners-Lee is correct. There is nothing from a technical or user point of view in Web 2.0 which does not have its roots in, and is not a natural development from, Web 1.0. The technology associated with the Web 2.0 banner was possible and in some cases readily available before, but the hype surrounding this usage has certainly affected the growth of Web 2.0 internet sites.

The internet (which is more than the web, actually) has always been about sharing between users. In fact, Usenet, a distributed messaging system, has been operating since 1979! Since long before even Web 1.0, Usenet has been hosting discussions, ‘amateur’ journalism, and enabling photo and file sharing. Like the internet, it is a distributed system not owned or controlled by anyone. It is this quality, a lack of central ownership and control, that differentiate services such as Usenet from Web 2.0.

[...]

If Web 2.0 means anything at all, its meaning lies in the rationale of venture capital. Web 2.0 represents the return of investment in internet startups. After the dotcom bust (the real end of Web 1.0) those wooing investment dollars needed a new rationale for investing in online ventures. ‘Build it and they will come’, the dominant attitude of the ’90s dotcom boom, along with the delusional ‘new economy’, was no longer attractive after so many online ventures failed. Building infrastructure and financing real capitalisation was no longer what investors were looking for. Capturing value created by others, however, proved to be a more attractive proposition.

[...]

The value produced by users of Web 2.0 services such as YouTube is captured by capitalist investors. In some cases, the actual content they contribute winds up the property of site owners. Private appropriation of community created value is a betrayal of the promise of sharing technology and free cooperation.

[...]

The lack of central infrastructure also comes with a lack of central control, meaning that censorship, often a problem with privately-owned ‘communities’ that frequently bend to private and public pressure groups and enforce limitations on the the kinds of content they allow. Also, the lack of large central cross-referencing databases of user information has a strong advantage in terms of privacy.

From this perspective, it can be said that Web 2.0 is capitalism’s preemptive attack against P2P systems.

[...]

Capitalism, rooted in the idea of earning income by way of idle share ownership, requires centralised control, without which peer producers have no reason to share their income with outside shareholders. Capitalism, therefore, is incompatible with free P2P networks, and thus, so long as the financing of internet development comes from private shareholders looking to capture value by owning internet resources, the network will only become more restricted and centralised.

[...]

Thus Web 2.0 is not to be thought of as a second-generation of either the technical or social development of the internet, but rather as the second wave of capitalist enclosure of the Information Commons.

Virtually all of the most used internet resources could be replaced by P2P alternatives.

Sony will launch next friday, just in Japan, his new videonetwork, the first step to challenge Google Inc.’s YouTube service. This service, called eyeVio, will be launched also abroad, but first will be tested on the japanese island.

CEO Howard Stringer said that “It’s an opportunity to transmit user-generated video anywhere you want to, anytime to anybody, in a protected environment“.

So the first issue is that it’ll be protected, and we’ll know that protected means less freedom for the user. Unlike YouTube, who has $1 billion lawsuit from Viacom Inc. alleging copyright violation, Sony decided to closely monitor content on the service. A protect environment to place advertisements that cannot be polluted by aggressive content.

For sure media producers will appreciate it, and advertisers too, but will the user switch from a completely free environment like YouTube ( also if it’s not true…) to a more controlled and secure video sharing network?

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web explains how the Semantic Web works and how it will transform how we use and understand data. From his point of view the semantic web is as exciting as the first web, but now the problem is not to visualize content, rather to classify and re-mediate it.

p.s.
the photo is taken from Dunechaser, that on his Flickr account has done a really funny Geek Luminaries Series, with the main tech innovator represented as Lego action figure. Thanx

Is it time to re-think the network theory? As technologies and user needs evolves really fast it is time to re-think network theory. And the dutch, from their long tradition of studies, present a conference centered on the theme of a new network theory, that goes beyond the Castellsian network theory.

Critical Internet scholars and practitioners will try to define questions and directions to create a unified network theory, that can go beyond the post-modern cultural studies, which focused on the place-less place, and ethnographic social sciences, which bring the networks down into the local ground.

The conference is the 28-30 of june, in Amsterdam, at the University of Amsterdam.
Organized by: Institute of Network Cultures (Interactive Media, Amsterdam Polytechnic, HvA), Media Studies, University of Amsterdam, and Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis.