As the song goes:

“It’s all about money, ain’t a dam thing funny, you got to have a JOB in this land of milk and honey.” - Grandmaster Flash

We saw it before and we’re about to see it again.

The nuclear winter is approaching. Ning has stashed away $100M in cash and others are doing the same. Soon the layoffs will start and even Google and Facebook will stop hiring.

And coming out of this dot bomb 2.0 will be a stronger, more robust internationally oriented open mesh which will rely upon inter-connected People’s Marketplaces to pay the rent and stay alive.

When I say marketplace I don’t mean literally competing with Craigslist, Amazon or eBay - though it could.

I mean a way for people to make money off of using the web to market themselves, share assets and reusable code with peers and in general, cocoon ourselves to the un-due influence of venture capital and BigCos.

This is where the politics of the open mesh collide with capitalism, Silicon Valley and Republicans. Cause on one side - we can all talk about sharing and RSS feeds and open APIs all we want - yet we’re spending ourselves into a recession because of the most unpopular president in our history (and here I’m talking about U.S. politics - but surprise surprise things aren’t going so well around the world - either!)

So what do politics and the Iraq War have to do with the open mesh and the inherent conflict of being a Republican and supporting the open mesh?

Well the War has certainly helped Exxon’s profits. And Oil prices have increased the price of food and everything else. And crooked and stupid investment bankers have tubed the international banking and credit industry - yet they make sure to take care of themselves as their companies go down hard.

The open mesh is based upon a spirit of cooperation and collaboration.

The open mesh is about becoming self sustaining so we AREN’T effected by wars, stupid execs or crooked politicians.

The open mesh will inter-connect a myriad of cultures, platforms and technologies in a way which will fulfill the original promise of the web.

To do that - we need to live with these Republicans. They’ll be followers, but they’ll eventually understand that open is the new black and that if they DON’T open up - they’ll end up like Word Perfect or Netscape.

The People’s Marketplace will bring cute little Avatars into our cell phones and have them carry around or ‘digital lifestyles’ in their backpacks.

The People’s Marketplace will enable me to sell all these 3D models and drum beats that I’ve got stored up on my hard drive.

The People’s Marketplace will enable end-users to monetize their ‘attention’ and auction it off to the highest bidder.

The People’s marketplace will harness a community of peers and get answers to your questions in a timely manner.

The Open Mesh will provide all sorts of People’s Marketplaces that understand who you are, what you want and where you are. Sure they’ll be plenty of BigCos - all migrating towards the open mesh - on their own trajectory each path.

Educational objects are also a way for intelligent folks to make money. Imagine encapsulating some course, tutorial, advice, guidelines, how-to-guide in an object which can get you PAID for your work and intellectual property! Educational objects would fit seamlessly into the open mesh and be compatible with many DIFFERENT People’s Marketplaces.

Health is also a big bugaboo and should offer lots of opportunities for the open mesh.

There are lots of lots of people out there - each with their own shingle hanging out there - looking for customers. The open mesh will bring them their customers and build a community around their products or services.

The best part about blogging as white paper as you’re writing it - is the feedback and editing you get from your readers. So please everyone - help me out in identifying players, key issues, additional constructs anything else I’ve left out of these blog posts.

Now onto the summary page.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 10:13 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.