From Production to Produsage: Book of the Week (II)

As I mentioned the other day, Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage was chosen as book of the week on the P2P Foundation Website, and Michel Bauwens has kindly posted a few excerpts from the book on the P2P Foundation blog. The last two of these are now up, and I've also reposted the entire series here on this site - please feel free to leave comments here or discuss them over at the P2P Foundation Ning site.

The third excerpt from the book delves more deeply into what role technology might play in supporting or delaying the further development of produsage projects, especially also when we consider who owns and operates this technology (a question I've explored further in my recent essay for Re-Public, "Who Controls the Means of Produsage?"). To what extent can collaborative technology be commercially controlled without losing the openness and self-organisation that is crucially required for produsage to exist?

The final instalment addresses another key question which emerges as produsage models become more mainstream - how can the open, collaborative approach inherent in produsage be translated to the political arena, or in other words, is it possible to develop a kind of produsage politics? At present we're only seeing the first nascent moves in this direction, of course - but I think it's impossible to sketch out already what may be possible here. (Much of the discussion which took place in the recent Vibewire e-Festival of Ideas that I participated in also explored these possibilities.)

Head on over to the P2P Foundation blog to read more, or read the reposted excerpts here.

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