ARTICLES: "Googlenomics" & "The New Socialism"

[Ryan Goble]

Wired's June 2009 issues addressed the "New New Economy"

A bunch of interesting articles, most notably...

"The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online"

Best chunk to get a flavor of the article..

I recognize that the word socialism is bound to make many readers twitch. It carries tremendous cultural baggage, as do the related terms communal, communitarian, and collective. I use socialism because technically it is the best word to indicate a range of technologies that rely for their power on social interactions. Broadly, collective action is what Web sites and Net-connected apps generate when they harness input from the global audience. Of course, there's rhetorical danger in lumping so many types of organization under such an inflammatory heading. But there are no unsoiled terms available, so we might as well redeem this one.
When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labor without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it's not unreasonable to call that socialism.

In the late '90s, activist, provocateur, and aging hippy John Barlow began calling this drift, somewhat tongue in cheek, "dot-communism." He defined it as a "workforce composed entirely of free agents," a decentralized gift or barter economy where there is no property and where technological architecture defines the political space. He was right on the virtual money. But there is one way in which socialism is the wrong word for what is happening: It is not an ideology. It demands no rigid creed. Rather, it is a spectrum of attitudes, techniques, and tools that promote collaboration, sharing, aggregation, coordination, ad hocracy, and a host of other newly enabled types of social cooperation. It is a design frontier and a particularly fertile space for innovation.

"Secret of Googlenomics: Data-Fueled Recipe Brews Profitability'

This article was hard for my small brain to digest but this infographic does a good job breaking the ad auction down.

Wired is the perpetual "blue sky mag" when it comes to technology but they do a good job of looking at both sides of the big tech companies... Interestingly enough, the next issue followed up with an article "Why Is Obama's Top Antitrust Cop Gunning for Google?" exploring the possibility of an anit-trust case against Google.