Every decade or so a piece of writing appears that conditions our thinking and helps shape the course of history. Work like Eric S. Raymond’s, “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” for example, help expose truths to us that, until they’re written down, somehow remain outside our grasp. In some cases it can be decades [...]

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In the last couple of weeks, my colleague Alan Majer and I have had some interesting conversations with people like Sean Moss-Pultz (associated with open source mobile effort openmoko), Vincent John Vincent (president of machine vision company GestureTek), and other forward-looking thinkers about the future of mobile technologies.
Here’s a nice image of the open [...]

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My colleague Paul Artiuch just alterted me to a new Wiki initiative that aims to expose the secrets of the world’s oppressive regimes. The Wikileaks initiative 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, [...]

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A few weeks ago two U.S. congressional representatives — Rick Boucher and John Doolittle — proposed legislation to ostensibly protect the fair use rights of consumers in the wake of a sustained attack on these rights by various copyright lobbies. Much discussion ensued.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) predictably complained that the “FAIR USE [...]

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My colleague Denis Hancock has a great post on the curious and circular logic of DRM on our Wikinomics blog. Check it out. Abbreviated version below (yes, Denis can be a little long-winded
In February Steve Jobs issued some thoughts on music that were tied mostly to the continued use of DRM. In short, [...]

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Sounds a little lofty to me, but this is not the first time ideas like this have come across our radar. Faithful bloggers around the world have been discussing the ideas explored in Wikinomics and wondering about the implications for their respective institutions. Here’s one from Cynthia Ware:

The 2007 book by Don Tapscott & Anthony [...]

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The Washington Post is reporting today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will soon begin experimenting with a wikinomics approach to reviewing patent applications. Anyone who’s been keeping tabs on the intellectual property system knows that this idea is long overdue.
The number of patent applications has tripled since the 1980s, while the number [...]

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YouTube has struck what looks to be a model deal with the BBC to provide short clips on three new YouTube channels – one for news and two for entertainment. In exchange for providing content, the BBC will get a share of the advertising revenue generated by traffic to the new YouTube channels. Unlike some [...]

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