Today's Mighty Oak

So, here's what's going on with SOPA/PIPA, from the PR Breakfast Club:

Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who heads the House Judiciary Committee, expects his panel to resume consideration of the House bill in February. Even President Barack Obama has not exactly killed it.

Rep. Smith will most likely adjust the House bill so it can get an consensus. The same will be done in the Senate. And since President Obama has received campaign donations from Hollywood and the internet industries, according to the Washington Post,  he will try to find a way to satisfy both sides of the coin.

Jotting down a quick note, let's see if I can explain this.

The power of the web comes from the hyperlink, connecting ideas and people.  The second iteration of the web was focused on user-created content.  I've been trying to figure out what will classify the next iteration of the web, thinking about how we would interact with the infrastructure of the Internet.

But maybe it's not how we interact with it, not how we will use it for fun and pleasure, but instead, how we will use it for true information gathering.

Using this structure only because of the commonality of "Web 2.0"

• Web 1.0: The hyperlink
• Web 2.0: The upload
• Web 3.0: The tag

Just a thought, that's not well written, but just a thought for now.

Joho once again comments, the Net is a place.  Not just a medium, or a space, but a place:

It is a weird place in which proximity is determined by interest, rather than a space in which interests are kept apart by distances. It is a place in which nearness defeats distance. It is a place, not just a space, because spaces are empty but places are saturated with meaning: Place is space that has been made to matter to us. The Internet is a place.

eBooks are becoming more expensive, which, I hope will reverse itself soon.  I think it may take some time, as the author suggests, but I think it will become more of a gap between prices for e-versions and printed version of the same book.

The second point, is about reading more on a tablet.  On my hacked tablet (Nook Color running Cyanogen Mod 7), I love reading larger pieces, especially Slate and articles from the Post Gazette.  I'm hoping the upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich will allow me to install a couple other sources as well.

Either way, check it out here.

An art installation "sees" you walking down the street, scans your face, and pulls up what may be your Facebook and Twitter feeds, photos and even talks to you in what it thinks your voice will sound like.  All of this from information we freely put online.

Check out the Slog piece here.

Full version here:

Goodreads has a good article up about the elimination of the Middleman in book sales and publishing.  Am I the only one who is scared about the loss of book stores?  Don't get me wrong, I tend to buy a lot of books from both book stores and Amazon.  But I like my experience better at the store.  I can ask the sales associates for their recommendations, take my time, and maybe even write a book (we're thinking of doing our NaNoWriMo write-ins at Barnes and Noble this year).

And additionally, I can't quite figure out where Goodreads is coming from, it's almost as if they're advocating for what Amazing is saying, get rid of the middle man and let everyone publish themselves.  The commenters bring up the valid point that without the publishing houses, how else will all the horrible books be taken out of the pile.

Anyway, it's an interesting read, and it's a scary, busy time in publishing, that's for sure.

An interesting article over at Slog:

Those pundits and politicians who still insist that the Occupy protesters don’t have a coherent message need to bone up on their Marshall McLuhan: The medium is the message. And the protest is the medium. What's so hard to understand about that?

...

But perhaps no aspect of these protests better illustrates McLuhan's thesis than “the People’s mic,” which as silly as it may sound, and as mundane as its content may sometimes be, is a medium that inherently expresses a powerful message of solidarity and defiance, in and of itself.

Once again, JoHo reminds me of something that is easy to forget, but a basic truth:

The Internet is not a medium. We are the medium

JoHo points me to this article, touting the death of web 2.0 next October.  And truth be told, it's hard to take the date seriously (more in a moment), it's really a measure of the mentions of the phrase "web 2.0."  And while that may be true, I think we're here to stay, at least for a while longer.

Although, just to add, it's hard to take the article seriously, since it seems to seriously consider Orkut a big-time social network.

Anyway, I tend to agree with JoHo on this, just because this period of the Internet is more focused on user-driven and user-created content, does not mean we're going to leave that.  The Internet is a conversation, and this period is a time when those previously consuming are now engaged, for good or for ill, and actively participating in the conversation.

Will the conversation ebb back to the other side?  We'll have to wait and see, although I'm thinking we're going to see a mix, and something new, in the future.  I do like how the ending of the article was phrased:

The big question, of course, is what will Web 3.0 be like? And the answer, I suppose, is that if we knew that then we wouldn't be here.