Among all the current trends that are presently shaping the future of the Internet – the copyright revolution, the redefinition of cybercriminality, the dilemma of privacy on social networks, to name a few- there is one that has been underestimated and should be thoroughly reconsidered: the revolution of content. The ongoing euphoria towards social networks (Mark Zuckerberg has just become Time Magazine’s 2010 Man Of The Year) and the recent global trauma caused by Cablegate have played against the exposure of other major trends of New Media that really deserves equal attention.

The revolution of content is clearly one of those.

There is much to say about it but the case of Google speaks volume about the discomfort and concern characterizing the debate about how mass info is and will be apprehended by the system.

The One Trillionth Page Syndrom: When Quantity Prevails Over Quality

In 2008, Google announced it had indexed its one-trillionth page, and that was not going to stop. The new record indexation was presented as a positive evolution, the rationale behind it being that each new page indexed was a new step towards progress . However, though they presented the indexation of their trillionth page as a success, Google engineers themselves realized how monstrous the web had become.

In fact, in its blog, the web search giant claimed its engineers “stopped in awe” when they realized how big the web had become, after the index hit the trillion mark, with the web growing by several billion every day.

« This graph of one trillion URLs is similar to a map made up of one trillion intersections. So multiple times every day, we do the computational equivalent of fully exploring every intersection of every road in the United States,” Google software engineers Jesse Alpert and Nissan Hajaj wrote in the blog.

Going a step further, the same engineers also recognized that the number of pages they had indexed and keep indexing is probably not the best yardstick by which the progress of the Internet should be measured. The idea is quite simple: indexing new pages does not reflect any improvement since that is an intrinsic characteristic of the system where pages- with no regard to the quality of their content- add up mechanically.

« So how many unique pages does the web really contain? We don’t know; we don’t have time to look at them all. Strictly speaking, the number of pages out there is infinite — for example, web calendars may have a “next day” link, and we could follow that link forever, each time finding a new page. »

So, why has Google boasted about that indexation if among the best engineers working for the company, some overtly expressed their concern about it claiming the link between quality and quantity was not proven at all? As Vinton Gray Cerf, one of the founding fathers of the Internet and the inventor of the  TCP/IP Protocal put it once in a famous metaphore, the good news about the Internet is that “the kid is growing” and the bad news about the Internet is that the “kid is growing”.

At the same time that the Internet grows, it Achilles’ Heel gets more exposed too. Therefore, the fact that the Internet is growing is neither good news, nor bad news. That’s purely factual. But what is inauspicious is to realize that the creator has lost control over its creature and that is threatening quality on the web.

“Ninety-five percent of the universe is stuff we don’t understand,” Cerf told WebProNews anchor Abby Prince Johnson.

Is the dice cast? Has the breakpoint been reached already or is it still possible to regain control on content?

To answer this question, the study of how access to music (songs and tunes being the content) has evolved since the far-west style of the democratization of the access shed some light and should certainly be set as an example of what should be done in the future to perpetuate good content and avoid poor ones in other fields.

How Music Content Has Survived The Napster Era:  learning from our mistakes.

I remember the 1998-2002 period when, at that time, the big thing for teenangers and more generally Internet users was the possibility through peer-to-peer opportunities and pirate interfaces to download tons  of music for free. I was impressed.

That was a revolution. It seemed like a new era of freedom had started. Music choices would never be burdenned by economic constraints anymore. I fully took advantage of it, and so did everyone around me.

However, what first seemed to be an incredible step further for the democratization of arts & cultures soon became a nightmare for the music lover I had always been. People would see music quantitatively.  A sentence I still remember hearing over and over again was: “how many tunes do you have?” or “how many weeks of music do you have?” That was the idea, the more music you had the cooler you were.

It didn’t  matter if you could realistically think of  hearing all that music in your lifetime. It didn’t matter if you could list all the music you had. All that mattered was “how many”. And what had to happen just happened.

After a few months,  people around me started to have wild music libraries with hundreds of thousands of untamed playlists . A non-negligible portion of those tunes had not been properly downloaded and became amputated songs. Another significant number of those were untitled or just labeled “song 1”, “title 7”.

Not to mention the poor-quality of almost all the songs, due to the alteration caused by peer-to-peer liaisons. What is more, it was not surprising to find in one’s own library unknown songs that had nonetheless been downloaded.

This era of disillusioned freedom should have given the alert to a system where quantity and easy access started to prevail over quality and selectivity. Artists were not powerful enough to have the tide reversed but collectively, with the help of their majors, they started the change.  Governments followed suit.

Through huge media campaigns and legal packages, it indeed started to change. People realized how detrimental to music incommensurate and illegal downloading could be, and eventually came to the idea that having all the music one wants in a legal framework provided the payment of a small fee had, at least, three major positive consequences: first, it would protect the music industry which, in turn would keep producing talents; second, the downloaded music would be of high-quality and third, it would force them to really select what they really want.

First-In First-Out, The music industry was definitely the very first place where content were threatened and then rescued.

Offering someone free water at home for one’s lifetime should not be an incentive to leave the tap open 24/7. Free water doesn’t mean drinking water and people should underdstand that it is always better to pay a small charge for clean and drinking water rathen than have it for free at any quality.

I am especially enthusiastic of the new possibilities that the Internet brings for people to enhance their real lives and reinforce their small social worlds. This growing trend of using online tools for offline aims is especially attractive to me, as it becomes an amazing tool for citizen empowerment, which is my main area of study at SIPA.

Let’s get a closer look to what is happening and of its potential for citizens empowerment:

The three phases

As the rest of the world connected to the Internet, I have gone through the different phases of this new phenomenon, learning and discovering new things and also new facets of myself.

In the beginnings of the Internet, by the late 1990s, I became crazily excited about the new windows that the Internet opened to me. Google was one of the best gifts for humanity. I recognize I was also a victim of the chat phenomenon. I chatted and chatted with unknown people, and got to make some tight/weird “friend” relationships with some of people I found there. Later, we learnt to better filter the available information in the Web, and also to better filter the people we were virtually meeting! After a first phase in which we were using the Internet as a vehicle to connect with the rest of the world, we went one step further and began using the Internet as a vehicle to connect online with closest communities, our friends, our classmates, colleagues, and co-citizens. With the arrival of the Web 2.0 we began having a more active role in the online world; we started participating in the Internet in a broader sense. We began building together and somehow, getting some ownership of the social phenomenon. Still, we were amateurs. Facebook allowed us to find our friends, meet new people, chat and send instant online messages. In other words, I used to spend useless time in Facebook strengthening online relationships with people I could have seen life, just by making a quick call and taking the subway to get off three stations away.

Fortunately, something has recently changed. In the recent times, people have began to use the Internet as I believe it should always have been used: as a tool or a platform that makes our REAL lives better, easier, more informed, more dynamic. We are somehow recovering our good sense, our decision power. Progressively, we spend less and less useless time in the Internet. And the time we spend there is more efficient and more pragmatic for our real lives.

I decided to consult a social media expert to confirm this identified trend. Sharon Mandler is Senior Digital Strategist at Saatchi+Saatchi. Asked about the latest trends in the Internet, she states: “There are two main trends happening right now in the field of social media. On the one hand, online and offline lives are converging. People are not any more shut away in the Web. Today the Internet is being used as a way to make your life offline easier, more informed, more fun. On the other hand, the Internet is back to basics. People want simpler and faster services, spending less time searching and more time getting. The growth of the apps is a good example of these two trends.”

Asked about the new vehicles being used in this new wave, she suggested me to read a very hot and divisive article published by Chris Anderson in Summer of 2010 and titled: “The Web is dead. Long life to the Internet”. The author, editor-in-chief of the magazine Wired, reflects on the increasing role of the applications prompted by the spread of iPhone and other smart phones, as well as other Internet browsers in detriment of the traditional webs. In the controversial article, the author stated: “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.” The following chart presented in his article shows this trend:

Interviewing Sharon Mandler, I ask her about the driver of this change: is it business, the new technology or the citizens themselves? She answers: “The new trend identified on the Internet is prompted by a combination of new technologies, such as the smart phones that permit the installation of applications, together with a more expert and demanding user. Companies of course have also found a profitable way to provide access to their services through these applications and new platforms”. I wonder then what she means when she states that users are more experts and demanding: “The Internet user is not any more an amateur. We have become experts of the Internet: we are increasingly making a more efficient use of it, we select the people and the time we want to spend online, and we find the ways that the Internet services can enhance our real lives”.

Here ideas are aligned with the opinion of Chris Anderson to this respect: “(…)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). The fact that it’s easier for companies to make money on these platforms only cements the trend.”

Fostering citizen empowerment

Since the beginning of its existence, the Internet is empowering people by easing access to information, connections, communications and crowd contribution. The new trend on the Internet will have even a higher impact on empowerment. By connecting the online and the offline world, people are empowered in their real lives.

The Internet can extraordinarily foster citizens’ empowerment. In my previous posts I presented some good examples of it: for instance, the growing web-based NGOs fostering community action projects, such as Do Something, or Pando Projects, or new e-tools like SeeClickFix allowing citizens to to report issues happening in the public streets directly to the City Hall (like potholes or graffiti that should be removed). There are also e-platforms like Agentanything.com that permits everybody to post errands that are offered to students in exchange of some pocket money, and smart new websites to rent or sublet your apartment. We find also a large number of new websites that are offering e-tools to strengthen social groups offline, many of which offer mobiles applications for it. For instance, Group Me allows to send common texts to all the group of friends,  and Four Square offers a mobile application that allows finding where your friends are in the city, which restaurants, cafés, cinemas and places they have visited and how they evaluated it. Another great e-tool to empower people offline is Kickstarter. This platform is perfect to do crowd-sourcing for any personal project. Finally, I also found a website that creates a sort of Facebook at the neighborhood level, allowing people of the same neighborhood to connect online, share comments and suggestions of the places around and look for jobs in the neighborhood. This great idea is developed by a website that, unfortunately, is quite disorganized and not very user-friendly: Local Box.

All these websites work as platforms to attain offline goals, in real life. All of them are empowering citizens, who are getting together to fight for common causes or just becoming closer to better know each other. Mobile applications seem  the perfect vehicle for users to be selective and efficient in the use of the Internet, and make the best out of it offline. People have finally take control and ownership of the Internet, making it a useful tool for their real lives (instead of becoming a tool of the Internet, as I felt when long time ago I realized I had been chatting about nothing for more than four hours).

According to a report on BBC, Openleaks is planning to allow newspapers and other organizations to have more editorial decisions.

“Unlike Wikileaks, Openleaks will not publish or verify material; leaving that role to newspapers, ‘NGOs, labour unions and other interested entities.’

‘We are trying to build a community of various organisations that need or have use for anonymously submitted information,’ former Wikileaks member Herbert Snorrason told the BBC.

Mr. Domscheit-Berg, said the decision to be a “conduit” rather than publisher was made because of the team’s experience at Wikileaks.”

Specifically, Domscheit-Berg states that the technology can be embedded on any site, allowing for anonymous data leaks to go to the whomever the whistle-blowers choose. This addresses many of the problems with Wikileaks, including “too much concentration of power…in one organisation,” said Domscheit-Berg.

Additionally, Openleaks plans to give legal advice on dealing with and publishing such sensitive material.

The new founder emphasizes that Openleaks is not to be about faces or egos, and that he feels that Wikileaks became more about the project than the mission. “We’re not aiming for any front pages. If anything at all, this organisation is to enable others to do that,” Domscheit-Berg says in the BBC report. Though he claims that the two sites will be different because of the opposing approaches, it will undoubtedly be a rivalry that will be interesting to watch as it develops.

More importantly, Columbia SIPA students now have something new to write about.

1. Apple supports open standards for the web and has adopted HTML5 which is open and controlled by a standards committee. Adobe’s Flash is 100% proprietary, with Adobe having sole authority over its development, and thus if is a “closed system”.
2. The majority of web video is now encoded in the H.264 format, which is viewable on all Apple devices.
3. Flash compromises security, performs poorly on mobile devices and “is the number one reason Macs crash”.
4. The older video encoding used by the majority of Flash websites requires software rather than hardware decoding, and halves battery life.
5. Flash was not designed for touch screens, and relies on mice and rollovers, which have no place on the iPad, iPhone or iPod.
6. Flash is a cross platform development tool, with a bad track record in adoption times of enhancements to Apple’s platform. Enhancements will only be adopted when they are available on all supported platforms (PCs, Andriod phones, etc.). This results in developers having access to a low level set of features.

While this letter puts a grim light on Adobe’s app development future, on September 9, 2010 Apple announced they would be “relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps”. This means that developers can now use Adobe’s Flash CS5 to create iPhone apps.

Google was happy about this too, as  developers can now use Google’s advertising solutions in Apple apps.

So, what can we take away from this? When Apple relaxes, many breathe a sigh of relief.

While only federal agencies can post a challenge, the site is free and open to the public who are encouraged to support, discuss, and propose a submission to a challenge. Participants are also able to vote on submissions, and share information about challenges online.

The GSA has defined a challenge as “any problem in search of a creative or innovative solution”. The types of Challenges submitted vary considerably, ranging from suggestions, logo creation, video, game and mobile application production to proof of concept, project design, or complete products. Often prizes, both monetary and non-monetary, will be given for the best submission. It is through this structure of challenges and prizes that the government is looking to engage the public for innovative and competitive solutions for the key problems of the 21^st century.

Some of the many participating federal agencies include:

• NASA
• FEMA
• U.S. Air force
• U.S. Army
• U.S. Department of Education
• U.S. Department of Energy
• U.S. Department of Homeland Security
• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Challenge.gov is another great example of the collaboration innovation in open government that the Obama Administration is pioneering. When Thomas Jefferson discussed a participatory democracy where governments and citizens collaborate to solve major problems, did he envision crowd sourcing and contests? Maybe not, but I think he would have approved.

That night, the owner, David G. Bradley, proposed a toast. “For the magazine new bet on the online content”, he said. The company was close to break even for the first time in decades, he assured. Everyone clapped, nobody believed in Bradley’s words.

But this week, The Atlantic has announced that the red numbers are gone: it expects a $1.8 million profitability by the end of this year.

The news is important because it brings to the table another successful business model, different from those followed by other magazines such as The New Yorker, The Economist or Foreign Policy, that hide their content under a paywall and, therefore, are able to charge for subscriptions.

In contrast, The Atlantic business model seems to rely on web traffic and thus, on online advertising. By hiring bloggers, redesigning its website to make an almost independent product from the print issue, and launching The Atlantic Wire, the company has managed to attract almost 5 million unique visitors, boosting the digital advertising up to $6.1 million, a figure that represtents almost 40 percent of the company’s overall advertising take, according to The New York Times.

It’s interesting how the magazine has been able to improve its revenues in investing in original content, by joining the online conversation with other media outlets, and without necessarily adding high-quality video packages to the website. This should be refreshing for every “print” journalist, because that means that advertisers are still willing to put their money in sites where concentrating readership. And what will eventually attract readership, well, eventually good content. Good journalism is still profitable, even in the web!

Purpose believes that solutions to crises of the 21^st century require global policy shifts and tremendous consumer change. By mobilizing movements of people, online and off, Purpose is helping the green and social economy, as well as major brands, impact global problems.

The creators of Purpose, Jeremy Heimans and David Madden, have already experienced success in the ‘movement entrepreneurship’ world, founding the global movement Avaaz.org and the Australian political movement GetUp.org.

Avaaz, which means voice in many languages, was launched in 2007 with a mission to organize international citizens to take action on critical global issues. Whether the battle is against corruption, poverty, conflict or climate change, Avaaz’s internet model allows thousands of individuals to be forged into a collective and powerful force. Campaigning in 14 languages, with core teams on 4 continents and thousands of volunteers, Avaaz sets out to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people inform policy decisions. Currently Avvaz.org has over 5.5 million members.

Based in Australia, GetUp.org is an independent, community advocacy organization that facilitates Australians to get involved in key political issues and take strategic, coordinated action. With international recognition and praise, GetUp has more members than all of Australia’s political parties put together.

Purpose, based in New York, is creating “21st century movements”. Working with some of the leading players of the green and social economy, Purpose is helping movements to scale and mobilize around progressive causes.

An example of such a movement is ‘Global Zero: A World Without Nuclear Weapons’. Led by Queen Noor, Richard Branson, over 100 world leaders, and endorsed by President Obama, Global Zero’s goal is to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide. Working with Purpose, Global Zero is pushing the issue of nuclear disarmament to the top of international agendas.

I spoke with James Slezak, who leads Purpose’s work on the sustainable economy. James is motivated by the belief that for the green movement to be successful major sectors of the economy must be rebuilt:

“In the green space the goal is to shift the ways we do things, the economy. This means making less, as well as changing what we make. What is also crucial is shifting demand away from unsustainable products to sustainable ones.”

James’ key projects include building a global movement to support the deployment of electric vehicles, as well as renewable power.

James and his team launched helloelectric.org, a strategic movement to get electric cars on roads faster. This movement demonstrates to society at large that viable alternatives to fossil fuel cars are now available, and also channels enthusiasm for the necessary transition. James is concerned that if electric cars are not trusted from their initial launch they will fail, and there will be no other realistic way for countries like America to lose their oil addiction.

Purpose is dedicated to creating a consumer movement to lay the groundwork for the transition to electric cars. The initial goal is to give populations the opportunity to demonstrate their need for electric cars, so that car companies can target sales in these communities, and increase confidence of investors in the technology.

To achieve this, Purpose is having conversations with government municipalities, electric car industry groups, and working closely with Project Get Ready.  Project Get Ready, a non-profit initiative of the Rocky Mountain Institute, is working with numerous partners and technical advisers to help cities develop plug-in vehicle infrastructure and introduce electric cars.

Purpose is also talking to car rental companies and taxi services looking to transfer some of their fleet to electric cars.

This dynamic dialogue of governments, private companies, and non-profits is geared towards sharing ideas and best practices to help cities make the transition to electric cars:

“The benefit of having so many people and like minded groups working together is that you can cross pollinate ideas, to see what works and what doesn’t. Having so much experience is one place also enables you to create benchmarks.”

James explained that to combat the major environmental and economic problems the world currently faces we must rebuild the energy sector and eradicate carbon emitting power sources. Turning the roads of the world electric will be a key strategy to achieving this, and Purpose will continue to drive this movement.

As international citizens looking for a brighter future, let’s help them get the pedal to the metal.

Arguments span from accusations that Assange is a terrorist who belongs in jail, to the idea that can free the world from lies and conflict.

Sadly, few seem to argue for the middle path.

Why we need Wikileaks

As the past decade has shown us we do need organizations like Wikileaks. When democratic leaders go to war on false grounds and keep vital information hidden from the public, then, clearly, there is a democratic win in having an organization that can notify the public the way Wikileaks does.

Through its disclosure of classified documents, Wikileaks has given citizens important insights into state secrets and helped fight the trend to over classify government information.

“Wikileaks is enabling people to improve democratic accountability. That’s valuable to a democracy,” says Quint Hendler, staff writer for Columbia Journalism Review.

His opinion is supported by Alexander Hotz, who is Digital Media Associate at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism:

“Even in the US, sources are not entirely safe from outing or prosecution. Wikileaks provides a leaking platform, which is safe, secure and anonymous. I think that’s nothing short of revolutionary.”

… And a Critical Mindset

Yet it seems that caution and healthy skepticism towards Wikileaks may also be beneficial.

Although a democracy needs someone to blow the whistle on governments, it also needs for people to be critical when an organization, whose main objective is to promote transparency, is itself an extremely closed system.

“We are watching seismic events prompted by information from unknown sources, selected by unknown curators, paid for by unknown funders,” says Anne Nelson, Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

Her opinion is supported by Hendler who adds:

“It would be nice if Wikileaks were a better run and more transparent organization. At the moment, there is room for improvement.”

Further querying the methods of Wikileaks is the fact that the organization relies on framing to shape people’s perception of the material it discloses.

An obvious example of this is the military video “Collateral Murder,” disclosed in April, showing soldiers killing civilian Iraqis. Although the video certainly qualified to be a matter of public interest, Wikileaks was criticized for editorializing by adding a value-laden description of the content, focusing on a limited part of the video and giving it a very subjective title.

“It was definitely intended to be viewed in a certain way,” says Hendler. However, he does believe that Wikileaks subsequently toned down the editorializing effort.

Still, the organization does not refrain from giving its own opinion on the documents it releases.

“Much of Assange’s rhetoric suggests that Wikileaks has an agenda. The organization is clearly anti-Iraq war and hostile to US foreign policy. That bias – even if you agree with it – is a reason for skepticism,” warns Hotz.

A Powerful Underdog

The increased influence Wikileaks calls for a more nuanced view of the organization. In addition to being an advocate of openness, Wikileaks is also a gatekeeper because the organization single-handedly chooses what information to publish and how.

According to Nielson this is problematic because Wikileaks does not provide us with the same transparency and fact-checking ability as the press.

“The legal framework and safeguards for the print media have been built up over several hundred years,” she says, “Now the Internet presents us with a ‘Wild West’ where we don’t always understand the long-range implications of rapidly evolving events as they occur,” she says.

“The public shouldn’t trust anything Wikileaks releases as gospel unless the information is fact checked by journalists or academics,” Hotz notes, “To Wikileaks’ credit, nothing it has published has proven false.”

Wikileaks is trying to promote a world with total transparency. However, in its attempt to do so, it reproduces the exact same practices it’s trying to fight: Though promoting transparency, the organization itself is secretive about its operations and to expose governmental manipulation, it relies on editorializing information.

Nevertheless, this does not justify any attempt to prevent Wikileaks from leaking information that can strengthen democracy.

Similarly, the increased power of Wikileaks’ does not reduce our need for the organization. It does, however, highlight the need for us to assess Wikileaks critically.

With the organization’s multiple roles as transparency advocate, gatekeeper and powerful agenda setter, the question arises; who is to blow the whistle on Wikileaks?

“My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, pubic participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”

As well as tracking the government’s use of economic stimulus funds with public websites such as recovery.gov, USASpending.gov, and IT.usaspending.gov, the Administration is empowering citizens to influence policy decisions.

The Open Government Initiative was rolled out in three phases. First, The White House invited citizens to brainstorm ideas online for a more transparent, collaborative and participatory government, and then vote on these suggestions. For three weeks, which started on June 15, 2009, the public collaborated on recommendations through a wiki. After this brainstorm period, the White House reviewed the collated concepts and developed integration strategies.

Then, On December 8, 2009, the White House issued the Open Government Directive requiring federal agencies to take immediate steps to achieve milestones in transparency, participation, and collaboration. The Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Officer were called to create an Open Government Dashboard to assess the state of open government in the Executive Branch. On April 7th, 2010, all Federal departments published an Open Government Plan that outlined how they would make their operations and data more transparent, and allow for further citizen collaboration.

In its first year year, the Dashboard revealed that 45 projects were critically over budget, behind schedule or both. These projects were halted or terminated, resulting in cost savings of $54 million.