Lawrence Lessig’s vision of a “read-write” Internet (rather than a “read-only” Internet) is harshly and sloppily disparaged in Andrew Keen’s new polemic: The Cult of the Amateur. Lessig posted a characteristically brilliant response on his blog some time ago (which I only just had a chance to catch up with today). Lessig points out several […]

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Twentieth-century political communication has been described as a ‘oneway conversation.’ Instead of inclusive deliberation — the substantive element of democracy — professionally produced and polished declarations of policy were released for public consumption via mass media. For most people political debate was perceived as something to watch - or switch off.
YouTube is trying to change […]

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Over on Wikinomics.com, Paul Artiuch tells a classic tale about Dell’s encounter with the brave new world of transparency:
An interesting exchange took place late last week that pinned computer maker Dell against The Consumerist, a popular blog backed by the communities of various sites such as Digg and Slashdot. The Consumerist posted a piece entitled […]

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Speaking of Britannica and online encyclopedias, data straight from Wikipedia suggests that the web 2.0 paragon may be peaking.
The number of new Wikipedians is no longer growing at the same phenomenal rate exhibited in 2006. Similarly, the number of active editors appears to be in decline, especially if one examines the data across all of […]

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Scientists created and pioneered the Internet, so its natural that they would be among the main proponents and early adopters of web 2.0. In fact, there is arguably no area where web 2.0 principles and technologies are more vital than in the research communities that working to solve the long list of critical issues that […]

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Guardian sports writer Will Buckley wonders whether a little bit of wikinomics thinking could democratize football in England. The English game has recently attracted a wave of American investment as clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool, and Aston Villa have succumbed to American-backed takeovers. There is intense speculation that Stan Kroenke, who co-owns the St. Louis […]

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