RE: Action

New times
There are two events that have affected our view of life in recent years. One is the pursuit of celebrity - and with amateur entry into this world, the persecution of these people. The other is the Internet and its ability to produce, collect, manage and distribute data about you. It is the latter that has my interest.

Fear, paranoia, idealism, pragmatism, indifference, ignorance, sensationalism and more characterizes a debate about privacy on the Internet, both must deal with ethical philosophical dimensions as well as capitalist mechanisms. Information writes in the article " Would you share vacation photos with the Stasi? "in a perverse tone about how our privacy is threatened. Google and Facebook are compared with a manipulative and murderous organization, and by throwing on with examples to the right and left it exemplifies a journalistic approach to a complex problem.

Big Brother is often portrayed in a negative light. Supermarkets' collection of data using small sales ticket table reveals that the majority of buyers of Ariel washing powder also acts Lambi kitchen towels, helps supermarket not to put both things on offer in the same week. Are you afraid that a system that does not think himself wiser than you and that therefore you can not make your own choices?

Your data online is a commodity
I have for almost 11-12 years used Google as a search engine. In 3-4 years I've been on Facebook and one year is just passed on Twitter . At no time have I paid them a penny.

The Internet is here to stay. Google is here to stay. Facebook is here to stay. We use the services to surrender our data. It is our commodity in a world that is not free, but available.

It is not my intention to discuss the mechanisms of and Implications of Freeconomics [ book ] [ Wired ]. But free means paradoxically that the consumer is not completely free. The information I provide will be used to myself personally, as well as data that is added to a larger quantity, where my behavior out of the pile of others' behavior.

Legislation, relevance and myself
When I create on social media (Facebook, Youtube, WordPress, etc.), where I create and share content, so I say yes to a number of conditions. I will for several reasons. If no services had my consent, they could not publish my actions. It would be against the law and thereby make it impossible to service in its nature (possibly Penal Code § 263 and § 264, Personal Data Protection Act § 7 and § 8 and § 28 of the Administration direct reference in the Danish context, but I do not really know). The actions I make will be for their property (mostly non-exclusive). The knowledge they acquire, they can then use to improve their service.

When I search on Google, it is their intention to make the results more relevant. Their knowledge of my preferences through previous searches are assisting with this. The advertisements that appear may have a tendency to appear as relevant content. But as long as they adhere to the Marketing Act, I have no problem with it.

The Internet offers some new opportunities in marketing to target and measure our actions. Of course it must be exploited. Let me quote information when Stephan Humor says:

"The biggest problem with privacy and the internet is people's inability to handle the problem. It is a matter of technical competence. We can find again and again. Many people simply find it difficult to handle the problem, and they act before they think, "[He] refers to the debate on VHS machine detrimental impact on youth in the 80s as an example of lack of knowledge about new media.

"If people knew what conditions they go into, it would not be so bad."

Private life is a social norm
The above is in the blog based on an expression of my personal views. I'm not saying that Big Brother is good. But I think that Constanze Kurz (quote again from the Information) is right when she says:

"I think we need to invent new social norms, but also new legal rules that may prevent the technology's entry into the private sphere is perceived as something obvious,"

What my grandparents or parents perceived as privacy is not the same as I perceive as privacy. And the younger generations (critical and natural) use of social media will also affect my standards. Private life is a social norm and we are just starting to ask questions.

A good example: IBM provides software and other resources free for Linux partners. In exchange gets IBM knowledge and opportunity to use the Linux operating system on their machines, thus providing a computer at a competitive price.

"Anarconomy even new economic ground rules for logic challenges not only traditional monopolies. It challenges the company itself as value-added design, the hierarchical organizational structure and traditional pricing, what used to cost fortunes will be free in the future. "

The above quote to me is essential. It is Klaus Æ. Mogensen from CIFS , which stands behind the report "Anarconomy" (# 3, 2009). It is written legibly and divided into four chapters. The first is introductory to the concept. The next is about two scenarios for how the future might look like in relation to copyright in ideas (intellectual property). There is a chapter about how anarconomy expressed just now. And finally there is a chapter on "Business models are anarconomy". The latter, which in this context is most interesting, though such. Good morning Denmark on Monday spent more time on 3D printers. Perhaps because it is a tangible measure of how close this anarchic economy is upon us - and that it is not just about the Internet, but also can interfere with our physical life?

There is a huge growth in services on the Internet, where users themselves create and distribute (free) content. The reminder of our normal conceptions of particular ownership / copyright, which I will not dwell on in this context. But it has implications for how we can make money in the future. Technologies available in the form of easy, inexpensive deployment bears part of the credit / blame (if you will).

The report mentions a number of examples of how we can earn money in this economy:

• Attention from users is at a premium. This applies to the advertising-financed portion, where impressions, pay per click or action that counts. It may also be entities that were previously difficult to quantify. For example. individuals' attitudes and purchasing behavior, especially when opinion leaders are the most interesting.
• Voluntary donations are based on a desire among users to give the provider a coin to be present. The product is free, but users know that if they choose not to donate, so it may be that the product is not in the long run.
• Freemium is a term that covers the product is free. But if they are extra services, so it costs typically a small charge. The report also comes with an example from the physical world. Ryan Air offers flights from London to Barcelona for $ 20 even if it costs $ 70 to fly a passenger the stretch. The rest comes by additional charges for luggage, onboard sales and advertising revenue.
• We can also choose to give the product away in order to sell another. This is the music business that puts their music recordings available for free, legal download, and then make money on merchandise, concerts and the like. It could also be that the man made free software available, but that it was the support and additional equipment costs.

Especially "Peer 2 Peer" gets much attention in the chapter, which in my eyes is also good reason. In many ways users of the anarchist entities that upend the economy by being involved in product development, marketing, quality assurance, production and delivery of the service. The recommendation is that it should be seen as an opportunity rather than a threat. Sure, it's hard to accept that we should only serve 10% of what we earned before in relation to not earn anything. So there must surely be other solutions. Possibly. But the solution is not business as usual.

It is not because the report is blind to the negative sides of the trends that it sets. There is a difference between commercial and free products, they have never claimed that one will replace the other. Other good things to say about the report is the fine motivation barometer and other "fact boxes" over the more than 48 pages. I think that something is being done out of that flesh out all the ideas and analysis / interpretation of real events and existing things.

Mogensen refers to George Bernard Shaw's sympathetic equation:

"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I still have one apple each. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, we will both have two ideas. "

And that's when you master this mindset, it becomes possible to capitalize on these ideas - if I come with my assessment. Individual examples of business models in a "free" world, which I have reproduced from the report above are already known today. The future lies in how we attack our own product and ensure its value: the user and the sponsor.

The report can be downloaded at the CIFS site .