Clay Shirky’s got an interesting blog post related to the massive global economic and societal shifts underway as the result of the web’s unique blend of individual empowerment, social networking and interactive new media.
One of the more interesting aspects for me was the notion that a ’social surplus’ has existed since the industrial revolution created enough wealth for leisure and television filled the void. Clay suggests the web’s ability to tap into just a small fraction of this surplus, using Wikipedia as the poster child, reveals the massive potential of global social networks.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about creating forward leaning rich media experiences as an alternative to TV, but I’ve always thought of it from the micro level. It’s refreshing to see the macro angle and realize what it actually could mean to move people from isolated, passive time sinks like the boob tube (which I love) into engaging, interactive social networks that are building knowledge and literally changing the world.
Link was courtesy of Michael Malinak, a lead developer at TechSmith and one of the main brains behind the Jing Project.
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[...] we do this there’s an opportunity to create truly passionate users and leverage some of that social surplus everyone’s been talking about [...]