Finally, today we’ve launched edgeof.net to give a bit of the facelift to the Edge of Network idea.
It’s a modest first version, yet all great movements start with a simple idea. The new site is a central hub for promoting the Edge and everything around it.
I’ve spent the past eight months speaking at conferences and workshops about the edge of network and ECS and found it resonates well with many. The content on the site is the distilled version of these talks and of great feedback received so far.
The big task ahead is to trim down the amount of text to make it even more understandable and easier to read and pass on. All feedback is most welcome.
2 responses so far ↓
Bill Lester // June 4, 2008 at 14:59 |
Hi Damir,
Where do web 2.0 applications like Facebook fit in? Isn’t this an example of an application designed for folks outside the edge? It’s filled with all sorts of “features’ and is relatively complex, yet it is extremely effective at building social networks (communities) and is extremely successful. It’s a lot more than email.
What do you think?
Damir Simunic // June 4, 2008 at 21:40 |
Hi Bill, I think majority of popular Web 2.0 applications are about empowering an individual in different ways, making the technology approachable and usable. Facebook in my mind clearly falls into the transactional world of individuals on the ‘outside’. I don’t see it empowering an organization reaching across the edge, rather letting an individual inventory and publicly proclaim connections with other individuals.
From my perspective, Facebook’s success is about the success of Facebook the Brand, mostly through our fascination with astronomical and irrational valuations, not about individuals it empowered.
An organization using Facebook (or any similar branded service) to connect with others must submit its own brand to that of its host, and must force all individuals to join the said application as well (acting as a sales agent for the service). All of them would then become part of Facebook’s PR and claim about millions of users, and subject to their whimsical interpretation of their own ToS, while the organization would have no say in any of that.
I’ve outlined some of my thoughts in a post ‘Edge-of-network vs. Social Network‘