Hey people,

We need feedback. Reflection is essential.

We’re doing an end of year round of questions on checking with you on our mission and what we produce. Pretty please could you answer a few questions to let us know what you think. We will do a follow up post on reflecting on your answers. 2011 has been a tumultuous year of change. I won’t go into details as, well, it’s not the end of December yet.

Some of you may have noticed that we have for about a month now, been supporting Flattr donations on our blog.

The work of P2P Foundation relies mostly on the goodwill of volunteers around the world who care about this effort. You can help us continue and improve this work by making a donation using the Flattr button below.

British Artist Heath Bunting is selling new identities.

Identity Bureau @ A New Day’s Work from A New Days Work on Vimeo.

Heath Bunting, is a British artist and hacktivist, based in Bristol, known for creating art provovations that challenge political norms. He’s still banned from traveling to the United States for his work on genetic engineering.

Ryan Carson from the reknowned Think Vitamin design blog just posted on how crowdsourcing and our old friends at Kickstarter are changing the landscape for independent design pros while showing new channels of communication and expression. People investing small amounts of their own savings into projects they believe in, in return for a limited renumeration is certainly a great alternative way to investing and is empowering creativity. Live video is turning artists into their own global Bob Ross.

From Think Vitamin blog by Ryan Carson:

“Something insane is happening in the creative industry and all of you need to know about it. Two recent events have completely changed the career prospects for Web Designers and Developers:
1) Frank Chimero’s Kickstarter project
2) Natasha Wescoat’s live painting sessions.
Let me explain …

Frank’s Story …
Frank Chimero is a talented designer who thought “You know, it’d be awesome to write a book.”

Instead of going the traditional publishing route, he decided to ask for funding to write the book before he’d even started. He used a site called Kickstarter which allows people to ‘back’ projects by pledging money and if the goal is hit, then the money is paid out and the project begins. He announced the project with this tweet:

Announcing The Shape of Design, the book. Back me on Kickstarter? kickstarter.com/projects/30453…

He decided to set the goal at $27,000 and insanely, he crushed that goal in less than a day, and now, two days later he’s up to $51,000. I’m not sure how he came up with the $27K figure, but I assume he added up the costs for his time, the printing and shipping.

Let me share one more interesting project, before I share my conclusions …

Natasha’s Story …
Natasha Wescoat is a very talented painter.

Natasha paints live on uStream and Justin.tv. As she works on a piece, viewers watch and by the end, there is often a bidding.

Here she is starting the painting …

What’s the huge shift?
The power of crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter, and the entertainment draw of Ustream have created a brand new channel for designers (and developers, which I’ll cover in a minute) to get paid for doing something they love.

This model allows anyone with talent and a decent following (Twitter, Blog, Facebook, etc) to leave freelance and client work behind. They can simply move from project to project, knowing that it will be a success before they even start, while also determining the subject matter of the work.

It’s similar to the patronage model, but you get to pick the creation. Wild.

Natasha has learned to combine her talent (painting) with live entertainment. There’s something very intriguing about watching someone live-paint, knowing you might be able to purchase the work at the end.

So how can you take part in this revolution?
Put in a good 2-3 years of hard work, building your following on Twitter, Facebook and your blog. Frank has around 13,000 Twitter followers, which is a decent chunk, but isn’t impossible to attain. You can’t expect to just click your fingers and succeed like this. Gotta do the time.
Be damn good at what you do. You’ll need to build a reputation and being kick ass and creative. Obviously no one is going to want to fund you if your work is sub-par.
Have an idea that’s creative, original and valuable. Just because you’ve achieved #1 and #2 above doesn’t mean any project your throw up on Kickstarter will succeed. The project has to stand on its own two feet.
What about Developers?
I also believe there’s an exciting opportunity for Developers here as well. Imagine this scenario …

You spot a much needed tool or service. A new framework, iPhone app, plug-in, etc. You decide you can create an awesome solution and you can dedicate a couple months to building something awesome. You create the project on Kickstarter and everyone who funds you gets a copy of the app/software/etc and a few exclusive goodies.

I’m hugely excited by this new model and it’ll be interesting to see what other projects crop up.

I can’t help thinking that two folks who should’ve done this are Ethan Marcotte (a book on Responsive Design) and Elliot Jay Stocks (with 8faces). I know Ethan is publishing a RD book with A Book Apart soon, but he could’ve completely controlled the project on his own if he wished. Getting published by a respected source like Zeldman and Co is awesome but it would’ve been interesting to see him, Cederholm or Keith do their books via Kickstarter instead.

Love to hear your thoughts!

Via Think Vitamin
Images courtesy of Stephen Cowlsand Natascha Webscout

Tomorrow is the first ever global data hacking day. It’s just a great idea and you can take part if you get in touch with people organizing an event in your city. Alternatively you can speed boot-strap a get together. As you can read from the main site, it’s about building community around working with open government data, as much as it’s about developing code to localize applications that enable more political transparency and/or improve government service delivery.

To give you a taste of the enthusiasm for this event, there are already 63 cities in 25 countries spread over 5 continents taking part to an event which was announced a little over a month ago. This shows you the global hunger for open data and making sense and use of it. There’s lists of data slowly emerging, alongside the probable scraping of government websites. There’s also a planned videoconferencing ring which will flow across the timezones throughout the day.

Come join us! (Oh and i will be at the Amsterdam event which will be followed by Data Drinks #3 and oh thanks Dave Eaves setting this whole process in motion!)

I came across a blog post by Rebecca MacKinnon, a journalist, free speech activist, expert on Chinese Internet censorship and co-founder of Global Voices Online.

“… China is pioneering what I call “networked authoritarianism.” Compared to classic authoritarianism, networked authoritarianism permits – or shall we say accepts the Internet’s inevitable consequences and adjusts – a lot more give-and-take between government and citizens than in a pre-Internet authoritarian state. While one party remains in control, a wide range of conversations about the country’s problems rage on websites and social networking services. The government follows online chatter, and sometimes people are even able to use the Internet to call attention to social problems or injustices, and even manage to have an impact on government policies. As a result, the average person with Internet or mobile access has a much greater sense of freedom – and may even feel like they have the ability to speak and be heard – in ways that weren’t possible under classic authoritarianism. It also makes most people a lot less likely to join a movement calling for radical political change. In many ways, the regime actually uses the Internet not only to extend its control but also to enhance its legitimacy….”

…Several people who contacted me about China’s Internet White Paper were surprised at the Chinese government’s enthusiasm for connectivity. Such enthusiasm does not jive with most American and European notions of how an authoritarian state would be run by a party that calls itself Communist. What’s important to understand is that Chinese authoritarianism in the Internet age is not the same as the crumbling, centrally-planned authoritarianism of the Eastern Bloc, disconnected from the Western capitalist world…

…The CCP leadership recognizes that they can’t control everybody all the time if they’re going to be a technologically advanced global economic powerhouse. What’s more, high Internet penetration is necessary if the Chinese government wants to continue high rates of economic growth, which economists agree requires boosting domestic consumer demand as well as pushing Chinese companies to the cutting edge of technological innovation. China catapulted itself to become the world’s second largest economy by turning itself into the world’s factory. But Chinese labor has grown expensive compared to some other markets in poorer countries. In order to stay competitive and keep growing, China needs to transition from a manufacturing-fueled economy to an economy fueled by domestic consumption at home, while being an innovator for advanced technologies and services that can compete with American and European companies…

Thanks to Adam Greenfield for pointing her out (see comment labelled AG) in reference to Chinese activity around IPv6 and their ‘Internet of Things’ policy. He added the somber reminder, that at “every infrastructural advance, [there's] a watershed moment where the governing design principles of the technology itself begin to influence the types of societal experiences they might produce.”.

credits: image: Surfers at an internet cafe in China Photograph: Dan Chung

We just set up a new twitter account, @P2P_Foundation so follow us if you are 140 character-inclined. We hope at least to get Michel reporting while he is on the move so you can reach him in near real-time.

The Free Knowledge Institute is proud to announce the incorporation of the Foundation for P2P Alternatives (P2P-F) to its Associate Network. The P2P-F is the organisation behind the most extensive research platform on peer production topics around the world.

Its founder, Michel Bauwens, says about the FTA:

It is extremely important that the knowledge and practical know-how about the new peer production practices, which results in real and important social artefacts and ‘products’ that can potentially be used by all humankind. Thus the importance of courses that are both free, but also of a professional standards and that can be learned globally, through an infrastructure of teachers and mentors, and can result in recognized academic credit.

The P2P-F will contribute to the FTA in various ways, such as providing Guest Lectures to FTA courses and communicating FTA news through their networks. Feedback is expected on course materials, and advise and help with improving the FTA curriculum. One particular joint project the P2P-F will be working on together with the Free Knowledge Institute is the development of a course on “Peer Production and Commons Theory”. This course will be developed following the peer production model and will be open for contributions by peers and other organisations. The resulting course will be hosted by the Free Technology Academy and its partners.

Bauwens about the P2P Course under construction:

For this reason, we believe this first ever course on peer production has a historical significance, and we are extremely proud to participate in this effort with the FTA, a recognized and pioneering quality player in this emergent field.

More details will be revealed in the upcoming weeks, but we recommend you already to bookmark www.p2pcourse.cc!

FTA founding director Wouter Tebbens about the joining of the P2P-F:

Peer production is one of most interesting forms of social production that have already shown tremendous results, such as Free Software and Wikipedia. It is at the heart of the paradigm shift towards a knowledge society. The P2P Foundation is one of the important networks that tries to understand and conceptualise these changes in philosophical, sociological and political terms. In that respect I see the P2P-F joining the FTA network as a very welcome complement to the current group of partners. In my view the plans to jointly develop a course on Peer Production are an important step towards a broader FTA. An FTA curriculum that not only caters for learners interested in technology but also prepares people to understand these social changes and put them in perspective.

* About the Free Technology Academy *

A Consortium formed by the Open University of Catalonia (Spain), the Open University of the Netherlands and the University of Agder (Norway) and led by the Free Knowledge Institute (FKI), the FTA has received the support from the EC’s Lifelong Learning Programme to set up an international educational programme on Free Software. The courses are taught completely online in a virtual campus based on the Campus Project interoperability framework.

Following the Open Educational Resources movement, all learning materials are freely available through the Internet. The use of Free Software (also referred to as Open Source software or Libre Software) is rapidly expanding in governmental and private organisations. However, still only a limited number of ICT professionals, teachers and decision makers have sufficient knowledge and expertise in these new fields. The Free Technology Academy aims to address this gap by providing high level courses that fit into larger Master Programmes at the participating universities.

* More information: www.ftacademy.org
* Contact information: contact[AT]ftacademy.org

* About the P2P Foundation *

Is a multi-disciplinary research network exploring peer-to-peer based practices across all fields, from economics and politics to religion and developments in civil society. The Foundation’s principal activities are research, events and serving as a platform for sharing information and community.

* More information: www.p2pfoundation.net
* Contact information: michelsub2004[AT]gmail.com

Nathan Staudt based in the UK, pinged me to let us know about a p2p search engine. Of course, why had i not noticed any alternative search technologies, especially with different architectural approaches? Apparently this project has existed a long time already and i always feel sympathy as well fearful, when pitted against the obvious incumbents. After a bit of research it appears there are hundreds of search projects that cater to many different information areas, so plenty of space for growth.

I’m working on a project to bring peer to peer (p2p) web search to the public. I feel that p2p search is an important way to help prevent the censorship of internet search results. Read more here.

I would appreciate it if you would consider running an article about peer-search.net – it’s a unique search client (notice I say “client” and not “engine”) where the user’s search will never be sent to a single point of control (not even the peer-search.net website!) – instead, each visitor’s browser talks to random parts of the YaCy p2p network directly.

YaCy is a p2p network that works to index the internet (instead of sharing files like p2p networks are more famous for doing). The p2p nature of YaCy means that even if you attempted to modify an instance of YaCy to ignore sites that contain a particular phrase etc, then the other instances will continue and will find that content anyway. Likewise, when providing search results, the computers in the network work together to produce results so “bad” nodes fail to significantly impact the results the user receives. YaCy has grown steadily since its inception in 2006 and is now a stable, scalable, tamper resistant p2p network which currently provides an index to over a billion documents.

Please try out a few searches on peer-search.net and let me know what you think – it’s not Google, but then it’s still smaller than Google.
See my opinions on that particular topic (scaling) and why I’m creating peer-search.net here

Seems as if this book release has got testimonials from a Who’s Who of technology business leaders and opinion makers. While the subject matter might be very familiar or even old news to readers of this blog, it’s possibly a refreshing re-contextualization of business and it’s adaptation to the network and peer practices.

The Mesh is the new way of doing business. Mesh businesses leverage data and social networks to enable people to share goods and services efficiently and conveniently—to gain superior access to what they need without the burdens or expense of ownership. There are already thousands of these businesses—in transportation, fashion, food, real estate, travel, finance, entertainment and many other categories—with more starting every day.The Mesh has emerged as the best new creative engine for getting more of what we want, exactly when we want it, at less cost to ourselves and the planet.