Harvard law professor Yochai Benkler has written a very comprehensive book to describe conflicts between analog and digital data creators in society and how internet based technologies are changing society and commerce.

It’s a good read but hard to grasp due to a focus on economics. Don’t be fooled the by title if your looking at computer networks….he has written it into the binding that ties his arguments together.  It is truly worth the read.

Benkler shares how technology has merged the professional and the consumer into a ‘prosumer’ due to low cost and high performing computers and robust networks have made distribution of information cheap enough that community is now empowered to drive change.

Take a look at how the internet has evolved.  The Akami to YouTube migration showed how multimedia has found a free, reliable distribution center.  When you also migrate 1st generation complex, large scale websites to new blogs and content management systems under the open source business model Benkler states that data is now a “non-rival” product that has democratized the digital workflow of data from brick and mortar to community, peer-developed content solutions.

Benkler suggests modern computing drives new, strong and deep collaboration that can have a large impact on the global economy and society.  Benkler also suggests that as more consumers embrace technology collaboration, change to our culture is possible due to engines of free exchange (wikipedia, creative commons, open source and the blogosphere) could be more efficient (when shared) than current models that are restricted by copyright and patents because the ability to duplicate (or reproduce digital content) makes little or no impact on business.

Tags: The Wealth of Networks, Social Technologies, economy, society, Yochai Benkler, education, change, reading, trends

Maz is one of my favorite comedians. Found him on the The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour (iTunes Link) tour and have purchased his performances on iTunes (iTunes Link). So glad to see him perform at a TED event.

Tags: SUPERFreakonomics, Stephen Dubner, Steven Levitt, Economics, datasets, innovation, energy, population, poverty, technology, Sudir Venkatesh, terrorist, trends

I have been following Larry Lessig‘s work on copyright and our digital culture for some time, reading his positions online, previous books and keynote addresses at TED, Wired and last week to Italy’s Parliament among others.  His work on Creative Commons is a direct action from the creative limitations of copyright.

His latest book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy is a very easy read for anyone who has also known his work.  He tells an important story about how new technology is clashing with old money.

Lessig illustrates how copyright’s old money (the big media empires) are clashing with today’s society and technology.  Old money is winning financial amounts here and there, but ultimately they are cutting their own throat as they can no longer control content.  Their motto: since we cannot have it our way anymore (due to the easy distribution of digital content) we are going to sue as many people as we can and take outrageous amounts of money along the way.

Lessig simply points out the two different camps: Read-only versus Read-Write.  Look at popular consumer phones and computers.  Today anyone can create a short video and post it to YouTube.  And by today’s “standard” in social networking — your somewhat expected to post multimedia content on Facebook and YouTube for example.

But post a 29 second video of a baby dancing to Prince’s Lets Go Crazy and Universal Music (they own Prince and his music) files a lawsuit claiming copyright violations.  Its old money trying to control society and Lessig points out it clearly no longer works.

He acknowledges great opportunities that permit art and commerce to thrive in our new hybrid economy.  Yet the RIAA continues to litigate, suing  individuals for monetary gain. YouTube is being forced to alter posted videos due to old-money ideas and their lawyers.

But with the unprecedented growth of the internet and YouTube which serves over 1 BILLION videos each day all the lawyers in the world will not be able to keep up to date.  In the US alone over 12 billion are watched everyday.  And after all the lawyers for the RIAA would rather sue wealthy people in America than say 1 BILLION poor people in China.  Its no wonder some internet media companies have their physical servers outside the US – since copyright is not equal under the law of every nation with a fast ISP.

Tags: Larry Lessig, Remix, art and commerce, copyright, creative commons, ReadWrite Culture, old money, Media Empires, YouTube, Change, control, trends

Tags: Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Seadragon, Photosynth, design, TED, Virtual Reality, imaging, trends

Tags: Visualization, information, Chart Wars, politics, trends