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5 Apr
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On SocialNets & The Power of The URL
Robert Young, a frequent guest columnist on OM Malik’s Blog, has written a very accurate description about the changing media landscape and the power balance between consumers and corporations. The post is called: Social Nets and the power of the URL.
According to Young, one of the most effective ways to measure the shifting balance of power between consumers and corporations it to look at the web as a huge collection of URL’s (I would call it the WebDNA), and then distinguish those URL’s that are controlled by corporations vs consumers.
Simply put, each and every URL should be viewed as a container for content that, in turn, can be distributed and redistributed. And the control of such distribution is increasingly in the hands of consumers, not corporations.
I like that precise definition, it really is what it all boils down to. That is why I prefer to call the URL’s for the WebDNA. Towards the end of the post he envisions the future of people powered community based-distribution networks:
Looking out several years, it’s not too difficult to envision a media landscape where the majority of traditional media distribution outlets reliant on the benefits of natural monopoly economics have largely been replaced with a highly-fragmented layer of people-powered community-based distribution networks.
I really believe that this is what we are going to see, in a way one could refer to “people-powered community-based distribution networks” as a true democratic economy, really even going beyond democracy in the sense that it is both empowering and rewarding the individual.
