Blog

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Exciting New Developments

• tagging is a non-heirarchical way of tracking and organising data [see the word cloud on the previous post]. It is a further progress from heirarchy to network.
• the internet empowers the man on the street to publish things and have an effect on the world. It is global mass marketing for the individual.
• The power of communal platforms [eg myspace; ebay] that rely on small individual users have as much influence as the centralised systems.
• Google, tagging, wikipedia re-imagines authority. No longer is it with the CEO's/editors etc it is with the masses. What most people think is important is important.
• There is generosity that makes the internet work. People give away ideas and information [to a point] that you used to have to pay good money for. Some sites and software are funded by voluntary contributions.
• People rarely launch finished products to the internet; unlike old-style product launches. They let the internet community test and develop the software before final release and therefore shape what it is finally like. I wonder what this says to church planting when people 'launch' a church.
• The most successful internet products are simple and modular. Not huge, impressive, complicated products. Rather simpel interface, simple function, built together with other simple products. Google is again a classic example of this. I am most impressed not by complicated and broad functionality, but by simple, powerful functionality.