Old-school netizen Howard Rheingold has written a short manifesto entitled “Mobile and Open”.
The setup suggests, quite reasonably IMHO, that some key elements of the Internet’s development were lucky strokes, and implies that entrenched powers might now be on to the ability of disruptive technologies to, well, disrupt (it should go without saying that this disruption is at the likely expense of the entrenched). Given that, what will make the coming network of massively interconnected and personal mobile communication devices do good for people in general, as opposed to just the aforementioned powers?
I’ll avoid quoting at length, as you should really just go read the manifesto, which outlines four requirements for a “future where mobile media achieve their full economic and cultural potential”:
That people are free and able to act as users not consumers: Users can actively shape media, as they did with the PC and the Internet, not just passively consume what is provided by a few, as in the era of broadcast media and communications monopolies. If hardware can’t be hacked and software is locked away from individuals by technology or law, users won’t be free to invent.
An open innovation commons: When networks of devices, technological platforms for communication media, the electromagnetic spectrum, are available for shared experimentation, new technologies and industries can emerge…
Self-organizing, ad-hoc networks: Populations of users and devices have the power, freedom, and tools to link together technically and socially according to their own inclinations and mutual agreements…
Everybody should have the freedom to associate information with places and things, and to access the information others have associated with places and things…
The original has started a lively discussion, if you’re interested in more.
(via worldchanging.)
recent comments