That is the hope – the global sharing could make the world a much better place. It’s nice to see that “Causes” is one of the more popular applications on Facebook.

This begs the question…

Begging the question is a type of logical fallacy. You probably meant “raises the question” or something like that.

It’s nice that you acknowledge walled gardens, but then you go on to write that companies are opening up. Perhaps. But it seems to me that we are moving away from whatever existing openness we already have, especially with the rise of digital content delivery and consumers’ expanding notion of their purchases as disposable. You point at Apple as a walled garden. Okay, good; nice. Only, then you cite perhaps their most walled-y garden-y undertakings (iTunes/iPhone) as shining examples of openness.

I don’t think consumers even want openness or are attached to the sentiment in any form. Try explaining why investing hundreds of dollars in something as ephemeral as DRM’d apps and songs is a bad thing, and you’ll get no response. Or worse, you’ll get a rebuttal from a blog author in the comments section claiming that these things are, in fact, wonderful and not volatile.

I think it is intereting to integrate this new thinking into an integral philosophical system such as Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory and realise that advances in technology are signposts of advances in consciousness and in culture.

In other words: socialnomics, open thinking and the Web 2.0 are going to bring about changes in the ways we do politics and ultimately relate to one another and to ourselves. In Ken Wilber’s language: the ‘I’, the ‘We’, the ‘It’ and the ‘Its’.

Let us hope that the social web contributes to that better, more transparent and democratic world we want to leave behind us.

This is a timely topic.

I think we have been moving in this direction for some time, even before social became the focus of so many things. One of the effects of Web 2.0 making the web a platform was this untethering of content from its dependency on specific locations. RSS readers were just the start. Youtube became Youtube in large part because they were embeddable on MySpace (and everywhere else too). Other content providers soon realized that if they wanted to reach as many people as possible it made more sense to let them consume the content where they lived and where they wanted to consume it. We did this in my last company by creating all sorts of content consumption widgets and social applications to let people consume the content where they wanted it.

Steve Rubel has talked about this being a move away from the destination web and John Borthwick has called this a movement toward social distribution in streams. And it makes sense…if web 2.0 is in large part about transferring power from the publisher to the community, why shouldn’t they be able to consume things where and how they like?

Twitter and Facebook are the next step in the evolution from publishing to participation, subscription, and now pointing to content in the status stream…

The big remaining question is the one you highlight at the end of your article: how do you monetize content when you don’t own the environment in which it is consumed? That’s the $64,000 question…

Of course, even on-site publishers are having trouble monetizing the on-site eyeballs they have today. Heck, even the traditional content broadcasters are having a harder and harder time justifying advertising fees in the age of Tivo and Hulu. At the end of the day, it could be that content providers will need to find a way to make their money on other things. The content will be free but drive merchandise or consulting or the book on the same topic…Or product placements within the content itself may be a good path, as long as it adds value to the content.

One thing I am sure about though: those who see a wider platform will prevail over those who see things as their own closed space.

Thanks for provoking more thoughts.

David