[wos] post-openness

[Janko Roettgers]

> therefore, the program, as the rest of the public communication of the
> conference, should avoid to much "'complexity' of things". at least when we
> want some sort of participation from the general public.

> maybe that is part of the magic trick, do create a successful wos4. we need
> simple, accessible concepts on the surface, to attract a crowd, and a real
> look into the "'complexity' of things" to get a deeper understanding.


The real question is: How much of a crowd can you  attract by relying on the
old and overused vocabularies of openness? One only has to look at the
current development of the network to see that the crowd really doesn't care
about such sort of discourses. Wikipedia is a great example. Now the success
of Wikipedia may be based at least partially on it's use of the FDL. But I'd bet
that more than 90 percent of the site's users don't know or don't care
about the
license and it's details. They see Wikipedia as a great, free as in
beer ressource.
Maybe  they acknowlede and see value in the fact that it's a work of
their peers.
But  that's about it.

Still, those 90 percent are the users that made Wikipedia as successful and as
important as it is today. And they don't stop there. They upload their pictures
on Flickr, they publish home video on Youtube and they connect to their friends
on, yes, Myspace. And by doing so they create and experience access to
knowledge in a much more profound way than we as activists and authors ever
could explain to them. If you really want a crowd, then concentrate on user-
generated content. Because that's where the crowd is at.

Now one can argue that Myspace and Youtube are not open and that
Wikimedia content is somehow more valuable than Flickr content, because
Flickr users choose the "wrong" type of licese and - god forbid - upload
infringing content. But obviously it doesn't matter to them. They take over
closed platforms and appropriate them for their own good. Ever got a friend's
request from some unknown Brazilian on Orkut? Ever seen what some 15
year old with some Javascript magic can do to an ugly Myspace template?

Of course copyright infringement is an important part of this as well. Flickr
may have it's occasional infringing picture. Youtube is a haven for unlicensed
stuff. TV clips, home videos with commercial music in the background, weird
remixes and appropriations are what makes this site work. By doing that
Youtube and it's users challenge the copyright system in a way that is maybe
even more profound than P2P. File sharing was about exchanging other ppls
content. Youtube and Co. are about taking that content and building upon it.

I think this huge wave of participation through user-generated content should
be one part of WOS. Another aspect that can not be emphasized enough is
the one of the platform, which of course relates to the discussion around
Web2.0. To me the important thing about Web2.0 is not whether or not Google
makes money off of it, but that it puts an empasis on the network as a
platform through open APIs. This of course challenges old-school thinking
about openness. Why would I need the source code of Flickr or Del.icio.us
if I can access every function of their services through their API?

The intersting thing to me is that these concepts of open APIs and
(similarly important) data structures now get embraced by all the big
companies. These days even Microsoft starts to understand Creative
 Commons and open formats. That's a huge change to the insular worlds
of the nineties or even to the state of the network two or three years ago.
Of course one can explore the economic sustainability of these models,
but wouldn't it be at least equally interesting to look at the cultural impact
of these changes?

My alternative proposal to another WOS about "Open _____" would be
one about platforms and paticipation.

Best,

Janko


--
          Janko Roettgers
Journalist - Los Angeles
roettgers at lowpass.cc

http://www.lowpass.cc