I'm working very long hours at present and sleeping probably less than I should, but life continues. Right now it's wet and chilly in Brisbane and I have managed to injure my toe rather badly (in that I cannot bend my toe to walk), but otherwise all continues well.
But I thought I'd share the following links as a 'best of' from my del.icio.us links lately, and from other trawling I have done. So whilst I have been quiet, rest assured I am still writing and reading in my 'space'.
- A timely warning from CNet on musicians' rights in 'light' of the license conditions set up at YouTube. While the internet video giant is unlikely to exploit the agreement, that back door is certainly open very wide indeed.
- Steve Rubel has an interesting article in MicroPersuasion on the concentration of media ownership in the Web 2.0 sphere, even as it expands. It may not be quite as significant an issue for consumer driven content channels as for mainstream media, but concentration of ownership in any sector can be dangerous for diversity.
- Nielsen Netratings have released a report demonstrating that use of the internet is shifting from communication to content. I think Doug Rushkoff might have a thing or two to say about this but even if the research doesn't necessarily say what Nielsen and its partners think it says, it does show that content is increasingly being used as a context for communication (something most commentators were saying 10 years ago).
- Over at RoughType, Nick Carr has had a go trying to explain what Web3.0 is and what it can do. It's probably accurate, and it certainly sounds a lot better than laying down our lives for our AI overlords under Web5.0.
- Also by Nick is the somewhat regrettably-titled 'The Ignorance of Crowds', in strategy+business magazine. The article is more about the limitations than the ignorance of crowds, but what it's useful for is in highlighting that large groups can create the kind of compexity that will foil the objectives of any management group. So never mind about corporate ideals for better engines or bigger profits; if you have a diverse group of people you are more likely to produce a money pit or an average, but accessible product. In this case, multi-disciplinary simply converts to megamediocre. So while Michael Fitzgerald over at Inc.com might have a few good ideas about using social networks to build your business, it may be worth thinking rather strategically and carefully about how these tools are used. You may well need to calculate the hours you are spending supposedly collaborating to make the business better by slowing regular productivity almost to a halt.
- Returning to the evil computer overlords idea though, Bob Cringely thinks the journey to the era of the Matrix is going to be extremely long and hideously difficult. Rather than Web5.0, I think Bob thinks it's more likely to be about Web3,497,864.0. He's probably closer than Carr in this prediction.
That's all for now. More perhaps tomorrow!
