A President that gets the Net?
It could happen.
I'm overdue a comment on this (been kinda busy ;-) but I'm nonetheless thrilled to be pointing, late, to Howard Dean's "Principles for an Internet Policy"
For anyone who really cares about the evolution and future of the Net, this is truly stirring stuff. Not so much even for what it says - as much of it has been said before - but more because it is being said, and said now, by a strong candidate for the U.S. presidency. That's almost astonishing.
He hasn't 'fessed to it, but I'm sure my all-time favourite former competitor and smartest living American David Weinberger's hands are all over it. We know he's been involved with the Dean campaign as "Senior Internet Advisor", so it's not a stretch to imagine him ghosting this piece.
It certainly reads like classic Weinberger - right from the first sentence, with its conscious use of the "conversation" thought. (OK, I know "conversation" might be considered more a Doc-ism than a David-ism, and the Principles' references to "empowerment of human voice" sound like RageBoy, but you get the point).
In fact, the delta between Dean's Principles and Doc and David's "World of Ends" (WoE) is so slight as to be almost unmeasureable.
Dean's 1st Principle says: "No one owns the Internet" -- the first of WoEs' Three virtues of the Internet says: "No one owns it".
Dean's 5th Principle says: "The Internet is a democracy of voices, not primarily a broadcast medium" -- the opening of WoE pokes fun at the "Repetitive Mistake Syndrome" that leads some to keep thinking that "...the Web, like television, is a way to hold eyeballs still while advertisers spray them with messages."
And the parallels go on and on. Both pieces are smart, informed, insightful, and just plain darn right.
That's a good thing.
Want another thing that makes this so cool? We're watching the federal policies of a potential future government of the world's most powerful nation being shaped by some of the world's alpha bloggers. Feel it.
I'm overdue a comment on this (been kinda busy ;-) but I'm nonetheless thrilled to be pointing, late, to Howard Dean's "Principles for an Internet Policy"
For anyone who really cares about the evolution and future of the Net, this is truly stirring stuff. Not so much even for what it says - as much of it has been said before - but more because it is being said, and said now, by a strong candidate for the U.S. presidency. That's almost astonishing.
He hasn't 'fessed to it, but I'm sure my all-time favourite former competitor and smartest living American David Weinberger's hands are all over it. We know he's been involved with the Dean campaign as "Senior Internet Advisor", so it's not a stretch to imagine him ghosting this piece.
It certainly reads like classic Weinberger - right from the first sentence, with its conscious use of the "conversation" thought. (OK, I know "conversation" might be considered more a Doc-ism than a David-ism, and the Principles' references to "empowerment of human voice" sound like RageBoy, but you get the point).
In fact, the delta between Dean's Principles and Doc and David's "World of Ends" (WoE) is so slight as to be almost unmeasureable.
Dean's 1st Principle says: "No one owns the Internet" -- the first of WoEs' Three virtues of the Internet says: "No one owns it".
Dean's 5th Principle says: "The Internet is a democracy of voices, not primarily a broadcast medium" -- the opening of WoE pokes fun at the "Repetitive Mistake Syndrome" that leads some to keep thinking that "...the Web, like television, is a way to hold eyeballs still while advertisers spray them with messages."
And the parallels go on and on. Both pieces are smart, informed, insightful, and just plain darn right.
That's a good thing.
Want another thing that makes this so cool? We're watching the federal policies of a potential future government of the world's most powerful nation being shaped by some of the world's alpha bloggers. Feel it.
