Archive for category Thoughts
Open or not?
Chris Anderson (TED) “Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display. It’s driven primarily by the rise of the iPhone model of mobile computing, and it’s a world Google can’t crawl, one where HTML doesn’t rule. And it’s the world that consumers are increasingly choosing, not because they’re rejecting the idea of the Web but because these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into their lives (the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen). “
Is the next evolutionary step of Social Media: “Social Media goes Open” ?
Open data is becoming integral to the social media services we have become reliant upon; streams of data are being published and made freely available, in turn, these are being embedded into whole new concepts and creating new flurries of apps/ services. We are seeing open data/ standards and open platforms enabling non proprietary aggregation – just like “The Web” itself – to this end no one will own the space in which we are social online and no one can predict the new tools which will develop from these endless possibilities. These new services will continue to challenge closed or restricted platforms and the clamour for less proprietary standards can change previously closed products and platforms.
It’s important that we understand the ramifications of what currently exists and what is becoming possible as new products and services become available more quickly.
Old style = long time specifying/ developing, testing against – fine for particular projects but more than ever organisations are turning to agile “open” development techniques: releasing more new versions more frequently, receiving quicker feedback and evolving their services accordingly as in a perpetual beta – think Google, new Startups and now larger corporations who realise money can be saved this way.
Reducing costs can be achieved with open source as there is no direct cost, no licence cost, no database cost and many open source components freely available with good support.
So the private sector is starting to recognise the benefits of both publishing and using open data sets in their applications and services to create more competitive businesses and ultimately better services.
And the public sector? They have embraced open data with the release of various sets of government data by many governments across the world. Many believe this achieves the goal of greater transparency and makes services better for the citizen.. social media has a huge part to play in this by enabling conversation, access to information and feedback. Google “Social Media and Open Data” and the top links are all government related both at local and national level.
Is everything going open?
Well, the answer is “no” when we see new products like The Daily from NewsCorp arriving on the scene, many would argue that more than ever the “open-ness” of the web is being closed down and Tim Berners-Lee recently commented “Not using open standards creates closed worlds”. This in turn has ramifications on the circumstances necessary to enable innovation.
Yet some of the most popular web services are increasingly open source – take Mozilla’s Firefox, Wikipedia, Drupla, Joomla, Wordpress, Android and more. Open source and open development are thriving using open source code to build software “lamp stack” and others, as opposed to using proprietary operating systems, platforms, coding languages and databases such as Oracle, Microsoft et al.
And now we are seeing the advent of Open Hardware, going beyond hacking to create bespoke “open” products.
mashup* Event has been holding events on “digital issues” in London since 2007, next week our half day conference is “Being Open ‘11″ where a diverse group of people will be discussing all aspects of being “Open” for good or for bad.
Speakers and Programme: http://beingopen.org
More:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/open_source_social_media_community_collaboration_freedom.php
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/21/data-gov-nigel-shadbolt-government
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/01/13/will-apps-unravel-the-world-wide-web
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