The dream is fading fast

John Naughton: Because we’ve all bought into the techno-utopianism of the early Internet, we tend to assume that it’s always going to be open to everyone. But as more and more of the world goes online, it’s clear that we’re…

What I’ve been reading

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. The Case Against Online Participation and Government As A Platform – "the question is: should we just give up and consider open government and government 2.0 an interesting, nice-to-have, but…

Micro-participation at ShropCamp

Continuing my current obsession with micro-participation, I ran a session on the subject at yesterday’s excellent ShropCamp. Basically I chatted through what micro-participation is and what it tries to achieve, where it came from etc. Then I gave some examples…

More on micro-participation

There was an interesting response to my post on micro-participation, in a number of spaces – which goes to show the value in seeding your content on sites other than your own! The most active conversation was on GovLoop where…

The need for micro-participation

A theme I’ve been returning to on a regular basis in the talks I’ve been giving lately has been about the need for government to make participation easier. I’ve blogged in my usual half-assed manner about the participation deficit before,…

Distraction

Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian: The biggest complaint, in both my Twitter sample and the expert essays, was about the quality of thinking in the online era. What the internet has done, say the dissenters, is damage our ability to…

The net delusion

The Net Delusion by Evgeny Morozov looks like it will be useful and interesting reading for those interested in the internet and its effects on politics and democracy, providing something of an alternative (thanks to Dom for the wording advice)…

Themes for 2011

2010 has been an interesting year for the internet. Where will 2011 take us? Here’s a slightly apocalyptic set of thoughts. Wikileaks, privacy and security Anybody who has thought for even a moment about the implications of the internet and…

Bookmarks for October 30th through December 10th

I find this stuff so that you don’t have to. Living with rats: Nine signposts towards Our Society – Good stuff from @juliandobson Wikileaks and the Long Haul – Shirky on Wikileaks What the attacks on WikiLeaks tell us –…