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Amateur Cultural Production and Peer-to-Peer Learning | DIGITAL YOUTH RESEARCH
interactive, digital, and networked forms of media are supporting new forms of engagement with knowledge and culture with unique learning dynamics.
Home Page | Evangelia Berdou
My doctoral research, which was funded by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (ΙΚΥ), investigated the organization of Free/Open source (F/OS) software communities. These are communities consisting globally distributed, mostly volunteer, contributors who work collaboratively over the Internet to produce software that is protected under special copyright licences and which can be freely modified and used. Specifically, I examined the issues of commercialization and peripheral participation, which refers to the integration of new programmers and the participation of non-coders, such as translators and documenters. I focused on these two aspects because I believe that they are directly connected to the growth and sustainability of F/OS communities. The primary case studies in this research are the GNOME and KDE communities.
Empirically, my PhD contributes to an understanding of the relationship between the market and the gift economies, and the division of labour in F/OS projects. Theoretically, this research adds to the discussion on the paradigmatic shift involved in the construction and appropriation of online communities as separate socio-economic spaces with unique production capabilities. Methodologically, this doctoral research invites a broadening of the investigation to take into account the diversity of the groups organized on the basis of various agendas, priorities and skills that participate in these communities An abstract of my PhD research is available here. More information on my thesis and the research projects that I have been involved in is available on my research page.
Before and After Shots of Google's Iran Maps - O'Reilly Radar
There many places in the world where it is not possible for larger companies to map them. These can be for economic reasons as is the case for Black Rock City (the temporary 40,000 person home for Burning Man). Or for political reasons as is the case for Iran and countries such as China.
As I mentioned the other day Google greatly improved their map coverage of Iran via user contributions through their Mapmaker program. These user contributions were applied just a few weeks ago. Here are before and after screenshots of two Iranian cities. The before shot was taken on September 22, 2008; the after shots were taken on May 18, 2009.
Worldchanging: Bright Green: Lewis Hyde and The Enclosure of Silence
Many Americans know about the commons from Garrett Hardin’s essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons“. Hardin wasn’t a historian, but a population biologist, who was concerned with problems of population growth. Lewis argues that Hardin’s prediction - that individual economic maximization will destroy collective resources - is based on a fantasy of a commons. In reality, commons had serious limitations on rights. You could only cut wood between Christmas and February, for instance. And commons were local entites - locals could exclude those from outside the region. These customary use rights meant that commons weren’t tragic - in fact, they lasted for millenia in Europe. (I interjected here to ask why Hardin’s idea has had such currency. Lewis offers two speculative reasons why - it’s a great phrase, and it came out at a moment where the Cold War was in full swing, and Hardin’s idea was a strong defense of private capital against communism.) Lewis suggests a different way to look at the commons, quoting Carol Rose, who talks about “the comedic commons”, one with a happy ending. As such, the commons was a site of action, a space for citizens to act on their own rights.
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We enclose silence - unknown possibility - at our own risk. Jonathan Zittrain demonstrates in his recent work on generativity that the value of systems often comes from unknown uses - the Apple II became succesful when Visicalc, the first spreadsheet, was written for the platform. If you want generative uses for a technology, Zittrain warns that you need to be careful what you lock down. Lewis also cites a case in which cell biologists patented a particular series of amino acids. They had no idea their purpose, but “purifying and describing gives you a right to own.” A later set of researchers speculated that these aminos bloc the growth of cancer cells - on publishing their research, the first researchers sued them for many millions of dollars. This can very effectively prevent exloratory science, he argues.
“When we enclose wilderness, we begin to give property rights in areas where we have yet to understand what’s happening.” An enclosure of silence affects the human self and the world we inhabit. How do you become a creative actor in this world? How do you beat the bounds of this commons?
Category:Governance - P2P Foundation
This section covers both 1) the organizational microscale formats or methods used to govern peer production, FLOSS, and other non-coercive methods of governance; 2) the evolution on a macro-scale towards the dominance of collaborative networks
This section is maintained by Michel Bauwens and adheres to Connective Hypothesis, i.e. The key organizing pattern of our global culture is shifting from a top-down hierarchical pyramid to a distributed, self-organizing network. [1]
Crowd Funding: Customers as Investors - WSJ.com
There's a new business model in which the customers play an unaccustomed role -- as investors.
It's called crowd funding. Customers invest sometimes as little as $1 in a product -- often an album by a new musician, or clothes or jewelry from an aspiring designer.
The Journal Report
* See the complete Business Insight report.
The customers then help promote the product by posting messages on the Web. Their incentive: a cut of the profits in proportion to their investment. They share in the risks as well, but each person's risk is low because he or she is part of a crowd of investors.
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- See the complete Business Insight report.
There's a new business model in which the customers play an unaccustomed role -- as investors.
It's called crowd funding. Customers invest sometimes as little as $1 in a product -- often an album by a new musician, or clothes or jewelry from an aspiring designer.
The Journal Report
The customers then help promote the product by posting messages on the Web. Their incentive: a cut of the profits in proportion to their investment. They share in the risks as well, but each person's risk is low because he or she is part of a crowd of investors.
David Bollier on Governing the Digital Commons | Berkman Center
Video: David Bollier's new book Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own traces the origins of free software, Creative Commons licenses and the online “sharing economy”. At the Berkman Center Bollier examined how commoners assert differing notions of freedom, community boundaries, social norms and reliance on law to protect the integrity of their shared resources.
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David Bollier's new book Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own traces the origins of free software, Creative Commons licenses and the online “sharing economy”. At the Berkman Center Bollier examined how commoners assert differing notions of freedom, community boundaries, social norms and reliance on law to protect the integrity of their shared resources.
Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education - Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks
Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
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Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
Twestival Drill from Ethiopia.
On February 12, people from 202 cities around the world came together for charity: water using a micro-blogging tool called Twitter. The global event was called Twestival, and was organized in less than four weeks completely by volunteers.
More than 10,000 individual donors contributed just shy of $250,000 - enough for 50 villages and 12,500 people to get clean water. As always, 100% of the money will fund water projects.
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On February 12, people from 202 cities around the world came together
for charity: water using a micro-blogging tool called Twitter. The
global event was called Twestival, and
was organized in less than four weeks completely by volunteers.
More
than 10,000 individual donors contributed just shy of $250,000 -
enough for 50 villages and 12,500 people to get clean water. As always,
100% of the money will fund water projects.
Share This Lecture! | the human network
Video of hour long lecture by Mark Pesce. Tags:Dunbar's Number, Gnutella, hyperconnectivity, hyperintelligence, hypermimesis, iTunesU, Napster, Pesce, sharing, Uni Sydney, Wikipedia
P2P Foundation » Blog Archive » Video: Introduction to Peer Production
Here’s a lecture explaining our research focus, i.e. emerging peer production, peer governance, and peer property formats.
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Here’s a lecture explaining our research focus, i.e. emerging peer production, peer governance, and peer property formats.
Open Everything - Open Everything
Open Everything is a global conversation about the art, science and spirit of 'open'. It gathers people using openness to create and improve software, education, media, philanthropy, architecture, neighbourhoods, workplaces and the society we live in: everything. It's about thinking, doing and being open.
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Open Everything is a global conversation about the art, science and spirit of 'open'. It gathers people using openness to create and improve software, education, media, philanthropy, architecture, neighbourhoods, workplaces and the society we live in: everything. It's about thinking, doing and being open.
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Open is changing the game. And, while Wikipedia and open source software offer great examples of what's up, we know that openness, collaboration and participation are spreading well beyond the realm of technology. It's about value, and values. Where open is headed is huge. Open Everything gathers people who are charting this trajectory.
Yochai Benkler on the new open-source economics | Video on TED.com
TED video: Yochai Benkler explains how collaborative projects like Wikipedia and Linux represent the next stage of human organization.
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Yochai Benkler explains how collaborative projects like Wikipedia and Linux represent the next stage of human organization.
russell davies: the invention of everybody / here comes air
The amateur and the small society seem like exactly the organisational models that the web supports so well. Perhaps they're due for a revival and we can find financial and legal frameworks to support them.
Are the Creators of Twitter Living in the Last Dreamworld on Earth? -- New York Magazine
Now think about that for a second. In the midst of chaos—a plane just crashed right in front of him!—Krums’s first instinct was to take a picture and load it to the web. There was nothing capitalistic or altruistic about it. Something amazing happened, an
56minus1 :: » Blog Archive » sharism: a mind revolution ::
What motivates those who join this movement and what future will they create? A key fact is that a superabundance of community respect and social capital are being accumulated by those who share. The key motivator of Social Media and the core spirit of We
The Economics of Giving It Away - WSJ.com
Over the past decade, we have built a country-sized economy online where the default price is zero -- nothing, nada, zip. Digital goods -- from music and video to Wikipedia -- can be produced and distributed at virtually no marginal cost, and so, by the l
MediaShift . Can Crowdfunding Help Save the Journalism Business? | PBS
Bands do it. Filmmakers do it. President-elect Barack Obama made an artform out of it. "It" is crowdfunding, getting micro-donations through the Internet to help fund a venture. The question is whether crowdfunding can work on a larger scale to help fund
How Wikipedia Works
Wikipedia is made up of people just like you: students, professors, and everyday experts and fans. With about 10,000 articles added to Wikipedia each week, there are plenty of opportunities to join this global community. How Wikipedia Works explains how y
The Contribution Revolution: Letting Volunteers Build Your Business
ntuit’s cofounder challenges traditional companies to follow the lead of internet superstars—and of innovative peers such as Honda, Procter & Gamble, and Hyatt—in tapping the contributions of countless people beyond their organizations.
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