A new phenomenon is appearing online, one that I call knowledge networking. People from all backgrounds with a wide variety of interests are connecting, interacting and sharing information. What we are seeing is a natural evolution of the Internet and its related technologies.
When the Internet first emerged in the 90’s, it was hailed as a technology that would change the world, ushering us into the “Information Age”. What happened next is predictable in a capitalist society — everyone tried to make money using the Internet to either change their businesses or invent new ones. You remember the outcome from this with the overheated speculation in the stock market and the eventual crash. While the Internet was somewhat discredited by the charlatans and over-hyped start-up companies that vaporized investment funds, it has continued to become a dominant force in our lives.
While it remains a major factor in the world of commerce (witness the success of Amazon and iTunes), the Internet has also enabled ordinary individuals to do some spectacular things without the benefit of investors, venture capitalists or organizational support. It has revolutionized communications in some very important ways.
Personal publishing – It used to be that the major news and media companies controlled the publishing of information. While they still exert a major force in what gets pushed out into the public space, personal publishing via weblogs and websites is allowing ordinary people to get their opinions and creative works out there for the world to see. Writers can now publish straight to the Internet, musicians can allow fans to download their music and voyeurs can post their naughty photos.
Networking – By using the commentary and track back functions of a weblog, people can now interact online around any number of common interests. Social software services such as Tribe Networks, Friendster and Linkedin are connecting people and allowing social and professional networking to expand exponentially.
Aggregation – The advent of RSS and XML technologies have allowed digital content to be syndicated across the Internet. A news story from a traditional media outlet or a posting from an individual blogger can now be accessed and broadcasted using the RSS (really simple syndication) technology. There are lots of RSS readers available now — software that allows the user to subscribe to any number of websites or information sources. Instead of having to surf all of these sites to seek out interesting information, the RSS reader automatically imports and aggregates new postings. Anyone can now access and consolidate virtually all of the useful information they are interested in.
We are seeing a revolution in communications both within organizations and for individuals. The general theme I see is empowerment of the individual. Hierarchies and corporate control are breaking down while power is being shifted to the individual and the social and professional networks one builds.
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