[iDC] Introduction re: "The Internet as Playground and Factory"
Howard Rheingold
howard at rheingold.com
Fri Jun 5 21:11:26 UTC 2009
Trebor asked me to introduce myself in regard to his post and the
conference on "The Internet as Playground and Factory"
I've written "Tools for Thought," "The Virtual Community," and "Smart
Mobs." Two of those books are online at http://www.rheingold.com . I
teach "Social Media" and Berkeley and Stanford and "Digital
Journalism" at Stanford.
I agree with much of what you say, Trebor, but I would only add that
I'm entirely delighted to let Yahoo stockholders benefit from flickr.
It's not only a great service for sharing my own images, but a place
where I can find Creative-Commons licensed images to use in
presentations and videos. Maybe that at the same time we look closely
at the way commercial interests have colonized public behavior, we
ought to look at the way profit motives have made available useful
public goods. May Yahoo and Google live long and prosper as long as I
can view and publish via Flickr and YouTube. And if this means that
I've blurred the line between my recreation and my labor, I have to
testify that even after reflection I don't mind it at all. It's
pleasurable, in fact. And I'm equally delighted that Google gives away
search to attract attention, some of which Google sells to
advertisers. I remember that when I first got online with a modem, the
cost of accessing skimpy information online via Lexis/Nexis and other
paid data services was way beyond my means. Now I get answers for any
question in seconds. How many times a day were YOU exploited by
searching for something without paying a charge for the service?
Informed consent seems to me to be crucial -- I choose to be
exploited, if exploitation is how you want to see my uploading and
tagging my photographs and videos. More people ought to reflect on who
is profiting from their online activity, and it seems entirely
reasonable to me that many would decide not to be exploited. I would
never argue that people should refrain from witholding their labor, if
that's what they want to do. Otherwise, I'm all for asking all the
questions Trebor proposes, which is why I assign students to read
"What the MySpace generation needs to know about working for free."
Howard Rheingold howard at rheingold.com http://twitter.com/hrheingold
http://www.rheingold.com http://www.smartmobs.com
http://vlog.rheingold.com
what it is ---> is --->up to us
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