walled communities

I was about to comment at Vijay’s post with the following:

So result: welcome to www.pagalguy.com !

But I decided to make it a post. After all blogs are all about conversations? Anyway, I think Vijay’s statement in his post Beacon Unplugged is slightly flawed (do read his post).

There is this basic ideology. The paradox of the masses. Whenever at any given network the number of members become too huge, the system starts to break down.

the aove statement is not totally true. I think, Networks are like fractals … the system actually starts to cluster internally especially when people are involved Any system that allows that i.e tools for fractalization built in with scale is the future.

Two things that are important for a striving community (niche social networks) to thrive are:

• Entry Barrier / Criterion for all stakeholders
• Passion
• Need
• Validity of both of them
• Sustainability Mechanics for all of them
• Moderation
• New things (tools + content)
• Guidelines

Certain basic need to start such communities are one of the 4Cs :

• Content
• Connectivity
• Community
• Commerce

All of this can be user generated (its better even if its slow) as it will be step in the right direction. This is validated according to me in real and virtual worlds in all aspects of the matrix.

Anyway thanks to Vijay, Rain in Mumbai to make me start writing again. Have a gut feeling … lots of posts will be coming.

information is electricity

I loved the points (thought, question and metaphor!!_ Mark Sigal (Network Garden) raises in the post: Social Map is All about Me

I bring Google into this equation for two reasons. One, to cite a tangible example of how the market goes about defining propriety and property rights in the information age. Two, because I believe that Google, as a benefactor of these rights, will need to share with consumers more of its social map of user clickstreams, engagement metrics and their correlates if it is to maintain the public trust. Akin to a credit report, I think consumers have a right to this data.

Therefore, what I envision is a consumer-friendly dashboard and analytics application that allows me to visualize the bigger picture by seeing the same contextual relationships that Google sees. Think zeitgeist-type reports that provide answers to the Top 10 questions relevant to MY universe (e.g., who read, commented, shared, how many) packaged in such a way that I can ask what-if questions to my heart’s content. To me, the social map is all about enabling applications that allow consumers to take back control of their data, help them to connect the dots between their various interests, orchestrate their brand and systematically engage their audience. This is the promise of the information age.

Given that, if information is the electricity of this era and information ABOUT information is the richest energy source of all (just ask Google), then shouldn’t we have universal access to this type of data? Heck, if Google wants my heart and soul vis-à-vis their AppEngine initiative, they need to give me a unified way to call upon and interact with all of the global data functions that they have cataloged (web pages, blogs, images, news, video, email, maps, calendars, etc.).

Facebook, Yahoo, and Microsoft: Couldn’t you disrupt the disrupter by doing the same? Is there any reason that you wouldn’t — or shouldn’t?

Education Platform or Institution?

Jeff talks about distributed university, I am not happy that he titled the post Google U. He writes on the topic of collaborative education – the new category: openguru I have opened in my blog. This post very clearly elucidates my thoughts (still abstract) on this topic:

Once you put all this together, students can self-organize with teachers and fellow students to learn what they want how and where they want. My hope is that this could finally lead to the lifelong education we keep nattering about but do little to actually support. And why don’t we? Because it doesn’t fit into the degree structure. And because self-organizing classes and education could cut academic institutions out of the their exclusive role in education.The real problem with this for society is that it cuts out the core business of the university, which also produces research and scholarship.The problem here is that the internet is unforgiving of needs to preserve old models and methods. It disaggregates ruthlessly.

So I think that education has a rude shocking coming unless it gets ahead of this change and figures out how to become less of an institution and more of a platform.

To top this, put it in context of India. 2 years down the lane – mobile is where most of the Indian population will be accessing online content, 3G hopefully will be up and running (regulation is throttling it). The desire to learn is very much there in the Indian culture. Name the city (rural or urban): education is valued irrespective of the social strata. And finally  demographically, a young population which needs & wants to learn and will learn how to use the tools pretty damn fast irrespective of cost.

The only barrier according to me is TIME.