O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference
    Santa Clara, CA

http://www.sixapart.com/log/2003/04/six_apart_miles.shtml <-- interesting!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,942024,00.html (Ben's article on
same)
'automatic creation of Friend of a Friend data'

Heh: "Social capital that's just leaking into the air now, could really be
captured and put to work for us"

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Social Software
    Intro
        See Rendezvous Lounge
    
        etcon.gne.net
    ETCon Wiki
        www.socialtext.net

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Smart Mobs
    You Can Create Tools hat Amplify Collective Action <-- Like this program,
Hydra!
    Collective Action
        People working together to create, communicate, deliberate, coordinate,
agree, exchange, linke: Democracy, Science, Stock Markets
        We'd still be throwing rocks at rabbits and picxing berries if our
ancestors had not banded together to hunt big gome.
        Unix, Internet, Web, Open Source,: enable & enabled by collective
action
    Peer to Peer technology
        Computational
            Seti/Folding@Home
            Wikipedia
            WiFi
            social software, i.e. Hydra
        Political
            US, Korean, Kenyan elections
            antiwar demonstrations
            moveon.orgHoward Dean meetup
    Users, not Consumers
        Consumers passively recieve what is broadcast by a few. Radio, TV,
movies, recorded music.
        Users actively shape media, create as well as consume, link together
for collective action: PC, Internet, Web.
    Fight to Remain Users!
    `Polictically
        Contloc ofy innovation under acttack: Broadcst Flag, Tursted cmoputing,
compromise of end-to-end prinicple, control of spectrum by incumbents.
    Technically
        ... (I need help writing notes...)
    Defenct Your Freedome to Invent
        Prevent incumbents from excluding newcomers (Internet radio, specirom
regulation , RIAA and MPAA).
        Make networks of devices, human communication media, a portion of the
electromegcnetic pectrum availibale for experimentation.
        Invent: micropayments, other solutions to IP problems
    Encourage Self Organizing Networks
        People and devices, mobile, networked, and pervasive.
        Trust mechanisms are pvotal. Will reputation evolve?
    Preserve Freedom of Information in Places
        "Will the people at 5th and Main be able to get information from
others?"
    Preserve Open Systems, Then INvent News Ones
        Thing about whole systems when designing new tools: build in room for
future innovators, learn from the past
        Link to others, build systems that enbale more links and more options
for users
        
        Howard Rheingold
        www.rheingold.com
        www.smartmobs.com
        


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On people volunteering money for music:
I think that's bollocks. I know it sounds terrible, but I really do. People
might like to believe that they'd operate in an honourable and pleasant way,
but I don't think it's true. If people don't have to pay, then they WON'T...

"He's also argued that people would volunteer money for artists if all music
was distributed through peer-to-peer technologies. I'm not sure I buy that
either! I think it's utopian thinking to believe that people would pay for
things that they don't have to - that they're not expected to... It's possible,
of course - tipping is a good parallel here - but tipping has a social pressure
attached to it, a physical and personal interaction at the heart of the
financial exchance. You can easily be <i>shamed</i>. You'd need stuff like that
<i>built in to the system</i> to make that happen... "

Good quotes from Rheingold:
"We're learning I think that we can use technology to increase trust"
"The history of Unix is the history of people working collectively to increase
the common good that was useful to all of them."
"They were visionary enough to not build in barriers to people who might be
smarter than them ... in the future ..."
Truisms - but valuable - people in the future will have higher bandwidth,
faster/smaller portable computing and on-the-fly networking, which could
radically enhance our ability to generate things collaboratively.

<P>Howard Rheingold - who is speaking at this very moment on stage in Santa
Clara - just said that companies would like the get us back into the role of
"Consumers" rather than "Users". He says: </p>

<blockquote>"Consumers passively recieve what is broadcast by a few. Radio, TV,
movies, recorded music. Users actively shape media, create as well as consume,
link together for collective action: PC, Internet, Web."</blockquote>

<p>I'm not sure I buy this. I don't think companies have any interest
whatsoever in specifically trying to define people's relationships with media,
they're simply trying to protect their businesses. Defining the relationship is
simply a means-to-an-end. This negative spin sounds too much like conspiracy
theory to me. I think we have to find a way of convincing companies that their
financial interest is in being at the forefront of <i>some</i> of these
technologies - and I think (to an extent) some of the technologies we are
trying to get into the common sphere will be lost or banned along the way. Yes
- it's a combative matter - it's like in a court or in the political process -
it's important that both sides are able to put their opinions and debate and
extend their arguments - but it's not a black & white, "Good vs. Evil" thing.
Ignorance versus Knowledge maybe (other people might say that it's Business
versus Communism, of course)...</p>



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Credits
    Cortland Haws (homepage.mac.com/pixelcort)
    Tom Coates (plasticbag.org)
    Matt Webb (interconnected.org/home)