The Internet is More Than Facebook???

Welcome to the World Wide Web: a world of “mass mediocrity.” In all honesty, back in my high school years, other than using the Internet for the occasional research my papers and projects required, I used the web provide me with mindless entertainment. Myspace, MSN and Limewire, that’s basically what the Internet held for me. Not to be as pretentious to say I don’t use these resources anymore or that I’m not a Facebook or Twitter junkie, but it’s ironic that even though I wasn’t using the internet to its full potential, these applications and sites for me, were somewhat of the basis of what Tapscott & Williams were talking about; the power of globalization and “mass collaboration.”

It’s amazing how blogging, websites, chatrooms and torrents have literally connected us to the rest of the world. When I post anything up on the web, most of the time I put it up there for myself, not expecting anyone to reply, but once I see that people have taken notice to things I’ve said or questions I’ve chosen to ask, it gives me a feeling of happiness, like I’m not crazy and think up these things all by myself. A couple months ago I was introduced to http://pbworks.com/ and saw how quickly information sharing could be and how open collaborations push ideas in directions you could have never thought up by yourself. Sometimes I feel like people, students specifically, are so used to being the first or only one to come up with an idea, that they forget that sharing and asking for help is probably the best way to better one’s self and or one’s work.

Whilst reading the first few pages of “Wikinomics” and being amazed at the fact that the open sourced collaboration method the “Goldcorp Challenge” used increased their profit margins to about 9000%, I have to say I was extremely impressed. The fact that a privatized gold mining company would open themselves up to the public asking for help is something that I have never heard of because I always feel like competition amongst corporations is about being number one and not sharing, especially in the mining business where a big part of the business is having a secretive edge.

Sharing vs. competition, this becomes a tough call especially when you get into copyright law, ownership and the legalities of ideas. Is anything ever really free? Although, like I said, I’m impressed that so many types of people responded to the “Goldcorp Challenge” and ended up successfully helping their company grow, the challenge was a competition with a prize at the end of the finish line. I’m curious, much of what Tapscott & Williams were talking about was how they think mass collaboration and web 2.0 is going to change the way corporations work, but once profit is involved and mass collaboration goes beyond a means of finding higher education or networking, is it fair to all the contributors that they do not get a piece of the prize? Within the reading, Tapscott & Williams do touch upon the fact that some people like Bill Gates, think that the idea of remixing, collaborating and sharing ideas is a form of “communism in various guises.” As we know, at the moment, the majority of the world has not looked kindly upon communism in a capitalist, hierarchal society. So, once again I’ve become cynical about the idea that people will only do something for free to an extent. * Sigh *

Though along with every new found technology or technological revolution, there will be problems. Some people will not want to adapt and some will embrace the revolution quicker than others. At this point, I think it’s going to be interesting to see how people will have to be re-educated to adapt to change. Like Jody said, (yes, a shoutout to my professor) if his and my mother can figure out how to blog, and are doing it on a regular basis, there definitely is a huge amount of potential out there for freedom of remixing, collaborating and sharing information.