The very idea of sustainability implies a life line of validity, reliability and invokes trust and good reputation. Sustainability is about long term balance. Financial, operational, environmental. It’s about supplying needs and supporting from below.

It applies to corporates and governing bodies, to managers, providers, public officers and governors of sorts. On its face value it’s about solidifying approaches of businesses with and term goals.

With the web 2.0 and the winds of change that put users at the center and empower them with a natural sense of entitlement, sustainability should change with it and shift its gravity to harnesses the economic and business logic for the humane. That way it will become what is now essential for businesses that want to adapt –  a people centered long term strategy to management,  planning and corporate identity, one that takes into account the real implications for the users, environment and society, far above and beyond the profit lines and business goals of the corporate.

People discern essence from form. They no longer fall for slogans, marketing schmoozing and election speeches. The sustainability lens is measured by the trust that organizations and officers invoke, as perceived by people. It is about the level of involvement and commitment to socially aware activities, the authenticity with regard to bringing back the humane sides and social dimensions of projects and endeavors.

Trust is built bottom up, by connecting the dots of promises and deeds, everyday small steps that show real commitment, a language that is framed in a trust inspiring way.

Even if officers forget, users and citizens remember that sustainability and accountability go hand in hand. Therefore when providers, governors and corporate leaders treat their audience as equal partners to the process and truly see the people behind the users- their future is sustained.

It takes a high personal level of integrity and authenticity to become a sustainable leader – in the corporate, public or civic world. It demands a long term responsible vision that sees the greater good and exceeds short term tenure. It involves transparency, social solidarity, accountability and ethics.

It ensures a sustainable future for both givers and takers. The people.

The UN declared that the 7^th billionth person was born today in the Philippines. 7 billion people and very polarized life between those struggling for drinking water, a cup of rice a day and basic shelter, hygiene and medicines to ensure their very survivability while the ipad/smart phone western digital generation cherishes the pursuit after the latest, bigger, faster as defining traits.

These two modes of existence are not as detached as it may seem. Changes in  a westerner’s lifestyle may not directly affect the quality of life of struggling people in the third world, still we live in an interconnected global economy where the butterfly effect slowly and gradually carves its impact.

Things are rotten in our affluent global kingdom of Denmark. In many countries, a growing demand for dethroning corrupted systems is heard. In oppressed regimes, rioters demand freedom and a better life. In more democratic countries, frustrated from the failure of the prevailing economic systems, the calls are for an affordable and a more solidarity based future. The outrageous numbers of discrepancies in the distribution of wealth,  the economic inequality, greed and even financial corruption marked an era that is shaking the world’s well being all across.

What can we, the 99% , do in our daily life to make a difference?

Build new engines; develop disruptive life paradigms that will influence our social networks, environment and the axioms on which current crumbling paradigms are built.

Corporate responsibility according to the new zeitgeist should be measured by awareness not only to boardroom results but to the real value its products/services carry and its authentic engagement as trust building mechanisms that influence the corporate identity. These days solidarity accountability and social and environmental awareness gradually become a new measuring scale for a more aware,  just and politically correct existence for many organizations that up till now were led by profit goal seeking as the ultimate purpose.

At the same time we, users, have a responsibility as well.

We can, and should, harness our life style and usability patterns to stop the vicious circle that feeds and increasingly empowers the ruling 1%.

How?

Do we really need to consume all that we are consuming? Is more, newer, bigger the answer? Isn’t that the pipeline that feeds the suppliers of the closed club of the few monster companies that control everything.

The answer to the capitalist networks that financially own the world top down is a user centered state of mind that defeats it bottom up through non tangible weapons – deriving meaning from values and actions that do not require actual purchases, but give satisfaction by their very value – an internal sense of purpose and fulfillment that is not determined by others’ defined status symbols or social ladders.

User centered economy of the soul and social connectedness will replace hedonistic stimuli with soul fulfilling activities that carry with them a lasting meaning. It will be based on real social values of engagement, involvement, caring, solidarity has a much stronger communal and networked value than any financial or brand related bonds.

The social net will get a qualitative meaning as well, as we harness our social circles for challenging the practices that created the affluent society that translated happiness to external assets and very individualistic life style. It  will shift control back to us, users, and will force marketers to share a humbler less greedy spirit. Continuing in the same paths is bound to prove self destructive. On its simplest level, our palates will not suffer a loss if on supermarket shelves there will a choice of 4 yogurt flavors instead of 15 and our personalities will not be deprived if not wrapped in the latest brands. Modesty of settling for less can be as fulfilling as constantly looking for the next stimulus, which very quickly proves to be nothing more than quicksand demanding to be fed again and again to keep the thrill.

Only then a different solidarity based world culture may develop, that will hopefully find more compassion between all its 7 billion inhabitants.

In his article One country two revolutions, Thomas Friedman describes two opposing revolutions that occur simultaneously. On the one hand, the social revolution that rattles Wall Street and as contrast the hyper connectedness revolution that is transforming Silicon Valley.

While at its face value it may seem that those two revolutions are contrasting in nature, in fact they are the two sides of the same coin – the user/citizen at the center. Connecting the dots leads to the common denominator –two expressions of the same phenomenon – the voice of individuals shaping society bottom up, in a collective collaborative way.  In both new social is the order of the day. Social activism, social media, grassroots actions and collaborative crowdsourcing are the means. Both are expressions of the traits that characterize user centricity and citizen centricity–a free spirit, independent state of mind and a natural sense of entitlement.

In one revolution, citizens faced with economic concerns, unrest and distrust of the system, react in a bottom up participatory wave of voices. They refuse to continue and passively accept old orders. In the Wall Street Riots the movers and shakers are no longer distinct mavericks, but a collective of citizens that has become a mover aspiring to shake the paradigm that brought them to the abyss.People who fear fragile economies, feel exploited, abused and betrayed want to bring back the human factor into the equation. They call for a more moral, value based and socially aware governance. These riots ignite a communal call for a civic ecology that that places its people at the center of the system.

The Silicon valley transformation works itself up through a ubiquitous open ended individual empowerment, a user centered paradigm, and a social collaborative grid of bottom-up shared conversations and collaborative efforts to work on the best solutions.

  Both are poking the box , replacing top down hierarchal dictation, both reflect a paradigm shift, a new state of mind.

On October 15, the global revolution day, citizens will march across many democratic countries in a protest not just against a capitalistic paradigm that set citizens back due to financial manipulations and greed. Occupy Wall Street and other marches across the world, such as the Israeli social justice protests, just to name a few,  are a wake up call for people who have given up hope because the systems crushed them, to reclaim their natural place at the center of the systems and to crown new kings that speak a new language and and can empower them back with forgotten hopes and dreams.

These movers and shakers are no longer distinct mavericks, but a collective of citizens that has become a mover aspiring to shake the paradigm that brought them to the abyss.  

The people behind the voters are finally angry enough. From dispersed demonstrations and riots in cities, a global movement is being born, that reflects a universal tipping point of no more, shaking up the prevailing axioms of the western world.

The lethal combination of greed based polarization, and negligence of basic social values, individual and corporate or sectarian atomization that focuses on segregated interests, alienates tolerance and solidarity, the major fractures in the values that hold a society together, brought about the bankruptcy of the current ruling paradigm.

On the other side of the fence users of the system (citizens as such),  busy with their every day individual agendas and struggles, have reached that inflection point that exceeds the personal and translates into a bottom up communal  collaborative momentum.

Social media and crowdsourcing expertise have ignited an a populist start, labor unions and left wing activists may capitalize on it too, but the power it can create builds a collective that cannot be put back into the box. It strikes a chord for citizens across the world, suffering the same set back, fears and frustrations are harnessing a communal  inner stamina to reclaim their  collective value and central place in the systems created primarily for them.

A new agenda starts filling the pages – a new culture, language, terminology that will serve as the blueprint for the professionals who will step forward and adapt to gain the trust of their future constituents.

The spreading protests are claiming a new civil ecology – a new power balance that truly puts citizens’ well being at the center. Cherishing basic security, non material values and moderating individual race for financial assets in order to introduce meaning, depth and participatory culture,  enhance social solidarity as a society’s goal – can become quality of life indicators. It’s the lever that will empower the quantum leaps needed for the new civic ecology.

When user centricity and citizen centricity, characterized by a free spirit, independent state of mind and natural sense of entitlement, are correlated against economic concerns, unrest and distrust of the system, change is bound to be cardinal.

The stagnation in the belief of individuals in the system leads to a sharp divide, as a bottom up participatory wave of voices refuses to continue and passively accept old orders and top down provider/ politicians’ self serving interests as an axiom.

The deteriorating financial circumstances all over the world, the fear of a recession ahead, the realization that the boomer generation inflicted a capitalism that went too far, that the ramifications hit all and threaten individual welfare, affordable future and growth, as well as the continuation of existing paradigms – all lead to a clear realization that more of the same doesn’t cut the mustard.

On different fronts individual reactions are mostly through small, personal and apparently minor tides of rejections –opting out, discontinuing, and looking for alternatives, in both the virtual as well as the real worlds. The tale of individualism that fed the systems to date and empowered catering for individual needs in the name of CRM or state policies was based on personal and sectarian fragmentations.

It is now turned against these institutions, commercial and civil, this time through communal social grids and in the name of social solidarity. The doubting crowds gradually take the reins in their hands on a way to radical transformations. Connecting the dots is moving from the serving parties who controlled the balances and gained power, to the users/citizens who claim what in their eyes is theirs to start with.

The fuse has been lit on many fronts, all at once. Same dynamics, different expressions. Signs are everywhere. When people, with a new state of mind go elsewhere, make new choices, opt for new providers, align themselves with new political voices, or as is the case in countries such as Israel and starting through Europe, calling overtly for radical changes – the ruling elites of corporations, financial systems and states, in many cases out of touch with what the people really want, must pay close attention.

These accumulated and dispersed reactions voice the same spirit:

Trust is gone. The contracts are being torn; new ones are in the writing. Bottom up, by individuals, groups and unfortunately in some places by mobs.

This fermenting realization will bring about new orders, as individuals tired of the deterioration in their life quality and as citizens claiming an affordable future for themselves, children and grandchildren demand to be truly put at the center. Even if now it’s mostly individual movers and shakers who carry the flag, quietly or aggressively masses will eventually align.

The deeper the tectonic shifts needed, the longer it will take for the tipping point to occur- but it is becoming inevitable, beyond the level of slogans, intentions and appearances.

When emotional meets economic and social, it crafts the seeds from which a plethora of small gestures and acts of individuals will connect the dots and together will create a shift that will matter. As Itoms in a people’s grid, what each of us feels, thinks and opts to do matters. Because we, users, citizens, matter – we are the heart of the system, its raison d’être.

When economies and countries go astray, individuals react bottom up, the wisdom of the crowds cannot be appeased just by educated charts and financial analyses. The increasing calls for transparency, culture and conduct that cater for the good of all, considers the well being of the citizens and exercises a reciprocal authentic pact are the heart of a new people centered paradigm, sensitive to the people that comprise it.  It should be based on new values that will put an end to old vicious circles and empower a new kind of society – more attentive to its citizens, to their quality of life, the meaning of their actions and not just their physical goods, where the people are actively involved in shaping the future economic and social structures of their societies.

Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare,  Google, cloud computing, mobile web.….. offer us an always on, accessible, knowledgeable social world, that keeps us connected physically and socially. This liquid web, as  Stowe Boyd calls it, is an immersive experience that makes us much more involved.

In the intersection between social graphs and interest graphs new relations between people and content are created.  He assumes that different consumer segments need different technological  support tools. In distinguishing between traditional, online and social consumers, users become stakeholders in the attention economy, as they draw their information not only from different content and social resources, but refine their relevant interactions through communication tools such as tweets, retweet, comments…    all create a very different user experience.

From an Icentered point of view, where I (the digital I of each user) strive for an adaptive web, tailored to personal choices and preferences – the human link of the single user still has a long way to go.

User centricity is about us, people. Yet it still takes a systemic view of the we interact with those tools and infrastructures, and how we become more immersed in this ubiquitous web.

Taking a different prism, an inside- out lens, the Icentered one, makes it more humanized. From that point of view It’s about us as people, not just users – centered or captive. To truly personify our web experiences, a deeper degree of individual personal signature should be called for.

Our personal data, real-time experience and interest based social graphs empower more humane social experiences, but the missing link is still personal context. Social humanification in smaller groups, such as the one offered by Flink12 that humanizes the social experience by creating social circles of no more than 12 people , is easier, because it reflects real life circles of interaction ad is initiated and moderated directly by users.

We need to control and manage more than just users’ privacy settings in various sites. We need to control in the same way Flink12 empowers us to connect at will people close to us around a specific subject, to connect our identity, data and sharing options from various sites around a topic that interests us in an inclusive holistic way that reflects us in our interactions around that topic.  This translates to contexting us, people, and not just a single thread of content. In such a Icentered reality, when I am in full possession of my personal information,  meshing all my interactions  around a specific topic within a specific interweb. Interwebs, as Venkatesh Rao explains,” is the perfect term for framing our experience of the Web today as an intricate mesh of play and storytelling that is enacted across many media and modes, an experience that is characterized primarily by its plurality A pattern of use with content, temporal and social dimensions, that evolves, lives for a while, and dies or morphs into something else.…”. For a short while, an individualized personalization hub is created. Since I own my representation, and am empowered to directly manage my privacy and trust regime, it completely sidesteps the exposure problem.

I, the individual user, am the glue that interconnects one inclusive context around many interwebs and allow an individual prismatic view of a thread/experience/ topic/action.

Once I, the individual user, create my personalized story, it is the context that makes it unique and  turns the overwhelming overpour of the liquid web into a humane selective experience .

From an Icentered point of view – my data, social network and my privacy and sharing preferences are mine to manage and use as I see fit. 2 new initiatives take this approach to different and opposing extremes.

Empire Avenue is a social media exchange platform game, where you buy and sell shares of people and of websites online through a stock market simulation. The game includes social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Flicker, YouTube, and the player’s own blog and RSS feeds.

Empire Avenue creates players’ portfolio in a virtual economy setting, like Monopoly on people, by driving their social media activity in the real world.  Players choose their own ticker symbol, the price of a player’s share depends on the ticker’s stock buying and selling, based  on  social networking activity. They can conduct share like activities such as multiple investors, invest in other players, gain dividends from the other shares in players they invest in, and can win Achievements for their actions, such as advertising and adding services such as Twitter.

The game intertwines real world and play world, because real life social activity of  play members , such as their social graph, RSS feeds and blogs, increases their game value which, in turn, is translated to dividends.

The game uses a virtual currency, Eaves, as a way to purchase shares in other players, that can either be people in your social network, or brands and companies that have social media accounts on Facebook – which turns it into a social marketing and mind share building tool for marketers.

Selling your Facebook friends and Twitter followers takes Empire Avenue to the most open social approach to a user’s own data, that by participating in the game, openly consents to trade with her social graph and be traded.

It can be viewed as a ranking system for social graphs, that builds evangelism, influencing and follower charts mechanisms that are the bread and butter of community dynamics. The data extracted from this social game draw profiles of influencers, leaders and initiators that can in turn become valuable in communities of interest.

User centricity takes an interesting open approach in Empire Avenue, as the thin line between reality and game is blurred in this game, once a player willingly becomes a part of a universal value index.

Can people’s stock like ranking have influence in their real life endeavors? Will players act socially online to increase their social worth and encourage others to invest in them? Will they be valued differently in the real world socially, in the job market? Is it good? Threatening? Exploitative? That’s very personal. However, just like in Second Life, the virtual world game, simulating and capitalizing on real world phenomena and rankings with virtual currency, to create a virtual world is very controversial. Only Empire Avenue blurs the borders even further and builds currency around real world people and their real data – it can serve from commercial interests and up to new circles of networking based on common denominators with people not originally in your social sphere, based on pointers and asset building of co-players.

Flink12 is the complete opposite. It’s a real life social network that brings back the authentic personalized touch to social networks by offering limited personalized networks of up to 12 friends in a circle, and empowers sharing of chats, photos and personally segregated blogs around topics and opinions. The approach of  up to 12 people in a social circle around a shared interest, with an option to have the same person in several Flinks around different prisms of sharing.  It takes a user centered control over the user’s social graph to a very private extreme, creating very small personal social spheres and making sure that those graphs are not indexed in the web in any search engine. Flink 12 is named after 12 cows that compose a flink.

It is a more relevance based networking way that brings intimacy back to private sharing of social online life. The small sharing in confined groups touches upon the fact that in the big social networks your list of friends does not really represent your human scale of personal relations. When you want to intimately share with a group of people around topics and experiences and don’t want to make it into public exposures – you can control the real sharing of personal information with just the people you want and actively control privacy and sharing considerations intuitively, easily.

Flink12 humanizes back the social online experience. In a social network era where one has hundreds of friends, personal touch is lost and we are all targeted by search engines and marketers, Flink12 brings back a personal touch of creating authentic first circle of really closed friends/family members/peers/co-workers around topics to shares humanifies back our social sphere to what it should have been – a really personal circle of communications.

By creating very private socializing maps that simulate more authentically our real- life personal socializing, as we don’t befriend 400 Facebook registered friends in a go and intuitively monitor what we share with whom.   It empowers intuitive sharing by natural social groups such as close family, close friends/co-workers and allows the online instant spontaneity while keeping privacy, user control and personal segregation preferences.

These two extreme new evolutions of social spheres online strengthens the 2 sides of what experiences should be like – ubiquitous infrastructures and accessibility, on top of which on top of which user controlled segmented interwebs offer varied
interaction option for each one personally - another step towards a truly user centric web.

“We will become the yeast that makes the bread rise”

Stephanne Hessel, Indignez vous.

User centricity is not just about consumers’ approach to marketing   and relations between providers and users, sellers and buyers.

It is also not just about the user experience, user friendliness and design adaptability.

It is obviously about the active roles of users – and beyond.

User centricity is about the active place of users in systems that are there to serve users in the first place.

In the digital world, where user accessibility, user voice  and  user participation are easily enabled – user centricity is about the active role of users, not just in using systems, but in actively engaging, influencing and shaping them in order to become truly reflective of what’s best for the users, and not for whoever stands behind these systems – be it commercial entities, organizations and even governments.

It is not just our prerogative, it is our duty. We don’t live in a vacuum. Systems that we are part of, have been originally built by people who were motivated by visions, ideals, social rights  and a need for better life.

The countries we live in, for example. It is natural for us, in the western world, to believe that oppressed people in non democratic countries, have the right to go out to the streets, dethrone dictators and corrupt regimes and reclaim by force basic rights and a quality of life.

But are we, wherever we are in the western world, satisfied with the way our countries are run? In the US, Europe,…..  Democratic states are primarily for us, citizens. E government systems are parts of efforts to bring citizens closer to the governing bodies, in operational and technical matters, and also in involvement in the policy making – as a means to gain our trust that our representatives and governing bodies are indeed acting for our best interests.

Stephane Hessel, a 93 years old French former diplomat, fought during world war II in the French resistance. He has recently published a manifesto Indignez Vous , or its English version Time for Outrage – a call to the French youth to   re-embrace the values of the resistance in France and to actively assume our role as users of the system and make sure that it is properly run – in the spirit and according to its original purpose.  It became an amazing publishing  phenomenon when upon its appearance, this short “new red book” sold over 1.5 million copies during a very short time  in France and Britain,

Time for Rage is about more than engagement. It’s about the central place of the individual in shaping the systems. When we, citizens, stop accepting passively what governing bodies do to us and our country, and start active engagement, systems will have to adapt to become truly user centered – for us, users.

“When something outrages you, as Nazism did me, that is when you become a militant, strong and engaged,” he writes. “You join the movement of history, and the great current of history continues to flow only thanks to each and every one of us.”

E-patients, is another example of a very influencing user centricity role in the medical world. It is a health consumer organization that envisions health care as an equal partnership between e-patients and health professionals and systems that support them.

Created bottom-up by patients who wanted better information and learning from others’ experience, it empowers  patient engagement and active role in the treatment of their medical conditions, relating  to individuals who are equipped, enabled, empowered and engaged in their health and health care decisions.

It resulted in a change of relations between patients and doctors because patients/users’ accessibility to better health information that influenced and changed doctors’ attitude and even knowledge and data bases, once users collectively take an active approach to their medical dialogs.

These  two examples amplify the scope and meaning of user centered – a true user centric view puts the user at the center – not just as a lip service. It’s up to us, users, to put ourselves in the center of systems with which we engage and engage and influence to help shape it so it really accommodates us.

User centricity is a universal approach that takes a holistic systemic view of  the place of the individual in it. As the web’s ubiquity becomes a given and an increasingly growing part of our interactions is web based, the issue of user centricity takes a more significant meaning. User centricity can no longer be seen as just a design principle, but the other way around, especially as user centricity and trust, an essential element in 21^st century web and business culture, go hand in hand.

User centered semantics comprise of multidisciplinary approaches – philosophical, social, economic principles and a fundamental set of values and concepts that assume:

• Open ended systems, interoperability protocols, design premises.
• User control over data, privacy, identity management…
• User controlled data portability
• Transparency
• Users own conversations, interactions, privacy and sharing
• Simple, intuitive usage design and inclusive user experiences for the weaker digital populations.

Once the user is truly at the center, user centricity requires balancing the interests of all parties involved, users, providers, institutions, architecture designers through a cooperative discourse that looks at all as equal partners and respects the rights and interests of all, through transparent mechanisms that enhance trust.

In web based systems, these values and premises can then be translated to define design principles of enabling and supporting technologies, platforms, architectures and business processes that empower user centered interoperability between users, providers, institutions, governance, communities and content creators.

User centricity in existing paradigms does not go hand in hand with top down siloed approaches that claim to be focused on the user, but confuse users with consumers from a corporate/institutional point of view. It is due to hegemony wars and business dominance of corporates and service providers, that do all they can to cultivate approaches that put constraints on customers’ disengagement, as they try to keep their customers captive for corporate profit building plans. It is in complete contradiction to the open, free and transparent spirit and culture of the web and of us, its users.

User centricity is not just about commercial offerings. It is about users’ control over their data, transparency mechanisms that are based on the principles of free choice, portability, simple and free disengagement…..

Whereas user centered takes a systemic view of user centered systems and scenarios, Icentered takes a prismatic view of the individual as the hard core nucleus of any user centered system. It represents the individual in the conceptualization of a user centered blueprint. How the world, interactions and relations should be seen through this lens, once the user is really at the center, with the reins of control in her hands.

The I in icentered focuses on the individuality of each user, as an Itom, the granular entity of the icentered world. An Itom is the smallest comprehensive unit that describes me, the individual user, as a whole, as a unique individual, through all my interactions, across all sites, platforms and media. Each and every one of us is an individual, unique, distinct, non divisible Itom.

Looking at the digital world through a prismatic view of each individual Itom , creates a new vantage point for web based relations. Once we look at it as a people’s web,  it’s an “I in the center” paradigm, where  each user becomes a distinct anchor,  an Itom. The systemic concepts and blueprints that will empower this vision of the web,  are at the heart of user centricity paradigms.

The battle over net neutrality and over open web as opposed to closed systems will only increase. In this struggle  the fight over the web’s  ownership and its usage patterns is a global powerful war. On its face level, the struggle can be seen as commercial struggle for  owning the principal platforms for web dominance, owning the apps’ infrastructure to ensure that whatever we use, we go through that platform namely, through closed systems that make us bend to their terms.

 In fact it’s about preserving corporate paradigms based on rigid rules of engagement, privacy policies of the old world, where top down hierarchies and policies dictate the business models and our captivity.

 It is  opposed  to open  systems that acknowledge and thrive on the cultural, consumer, social shifts and the free spirit of the web that encourages the  harnessing of  new business models to accommodate users.

The internet is etheric, ubiquitous, heterogeneous, distributed and intangible. It includes all the markets of the traditional world. And as digital takes an increasing part of our life, power struggles become more sophisticated and the fight to keep an open web takes further significance. It’s no longer about what devices we use, not even what operating system, but what culture, approach and relations we’ll have with companies that cater for our digital life.

This battle incorporates, from an icentered lens, the most threatening aspects for abuse of the free spirit, culture and mindset we want for our web life. It is a battle over our rightful place in ecosystems created around us, over our freedom of choice,  and our right to proactively manage our privacy and sharing.

We cannot be owned by providers. The battle to become our personal portal and the hegemony wars over web dominance between Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft are cannibalizing the basic web future and mindset it should spell for us, its users.

From a corporate perspective it’s about  transparency, data management, privacy policies and customer relations. The battle over who will have control over anything we interact with on the web.

We should be thankful for those super giants of the digital economy for empowering us with a new digital dimension that has revolutionized our lives and has made digital a commodity. At the same breath, we should fear the lack of sensitivity and respect, of those companies, who, through their offerings, define the rules of what our digital life will look like.

What awaits us in that power struggle?

Apple has revolutionized our communications consumptions, yet their closed system of Macs, Iphone,  iPads are closed gardens relying on itunes for entertainment content. Will the future spell a web built on micro apps?

Google’s search results, as our primary source of reference, dictate to a large extent how we perceive things. Will the future depend on an organized web according to Googles’ keys for inclusion?

Facebook has redefined our social connectivity, dialogs and the way we interact with each other over the web. Will it our personal operating system be dressed in Facebook’s outfit?

As the world goes mobile, smart phones will indicate the next evolutionary stages of web usage, the battle between the mobile Android based Google mobile OS and the closed Iphone systems is a micro cosmos of the battle over closed or open web. And on it goes…. 

 We are at the verge of web 3.0 that will bring with it awareness and contextification, that will make us, users, more vulnerable as computer systems will automatically analyze  our interactions with advanced semantic tools, spot our whereabouts and activities through location awareness. Add that to the downpour of information, data and media, personalization will be the name of the game – and control and privacy issues will augment with that.

The symbol of the battle between open and closed is the cultural difference between the basic approach of two of the giants fighting for hegemony – Google and Facebook.

We used to fear Google’ Big brother master plan for web dominance,  We can be mildly reassured of  Googles’ Don’t be evil motto that they have made a central pillar in their corporate identity, that their culture tends to be more open, today, and by the level of transparency that goes together with being a public company.  

Facebook opts for closure, secret and obscure policies, remaining private so not to have to embrace the transparency and accountability of a public company.  The Goldman_Sacks Facebook deal, a quasi private investment , asserts this. If  Facebook really wanted to, it could embrace an open culture, Zuckerberg preferred  not to assume that accountability.

 We must encourage privacy activists, consumer watchdogs and netizens  to foster constant awareness to the importance of open systems, transparency and user control in a free, neutral open social web.

A neutral web will ensure our security, safety, independence – as contrary to a closed web dominated by digital superpowers who constantly track us without any ability on our part to block or share at will, controls our data and dictates the economic food chains around our data.

For all these reasons, protecting us from the closing movement of the giants who want to dominate it all – calls for a paradigm shift. One that reverses relations between providers and users, is based on technologies and  an open mindset that will allow for pull based permission and data exchange context based food chains, proactively managed by users who become equal partners in the food chains created about them.

Some basic new ground rules for rearranging relations between consumers and providers must be respected. No commercial corporate, acting for its own capital gain, should own our data or have the ability to manipulate or expose it unsolicited, or arbitrarily and unilaterally dictate what additional offerings become integrated to the services and what their consequences are to us, users. They should respect our rightful place as the only owners of personal data, visibility and sole control over sharing handles.

Only then will Zuckerbergs relinquish their power, acknowledge and act with the humility and accountability that come with assuming the culture of reciprocity and respect of truly catering for individuals.