<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Hi Alex,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I understand your point about the difference between data and information. I think the Boston Computer Exchange Price Report is a good example to understand the difference better and how this aggregation / filtering technique is now inherited and became ubiquitous. Considering today's complex flow of information I find it important to dig in how value and labor is evaluated. I think we should look at the context more particularly rather than generalizing what is data what is information. Are these data or information?</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* A link in Delicious.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* A tag describing a picture in Flickr. </DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* A comment reacting to a YouTube video.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* A story in Digg.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* Some text describing how I am connected to my friends in Facebook (same college, same company, met in such club etc).</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">The problems of capital are deeply examined in the history, so I don't feel like talking about it at all. I can only say that I don't appreciate giant things. </DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"View Source" menu item was the key feature put into the browsers by the pioneers of the web (from Tim Berners-Lee's original browser to Marc Anderseen's Mosaic)[*]. This openness feature, affording to look inside, helped me learn HTML like many other kids in the world, which later changed my life.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Today I think what we need is something as simple as this: "View Data". </DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">burak</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">[*] Open Source Paradigm Shift, 2004, Tim O'Reilly. <A href="http://tim.oreilly.com/articles/paradigmshift_0504.html"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001FE8">http://tim.oreilly.com/articles/paradigmshift_0504.html</FONT></A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Jun 7, 2007, at 10:50 AM, Alex -Vipowernet wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV><FONT face="Arial"></FONT><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">Alex Writes:</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">Of course those who aggregate data own it.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">Data is not "information" until it is aggregated into useful order. </SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">Data is just chaos until you must apply "neg-entropy" to find the patterns and order in the data - THEN you have useful information!</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">In the 1980's I created the Boston Computer Exchange. We aggregating data about people who owned computers they wanted to sell and buyers who wanted them. Once a week we reported the </SPAN><STRONG style="font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; ">"BoCoEx Closing Prices Report"</SPAN></STRONG><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; "> and this little report was picked up by all the major computer magazines and appeared as a new item. A lot of people had price information - we had aggregated it and made it into a report - thus we added value. And later sold access to that data to those who needed it...</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">There is irony in your comment about small companies are being bought up by BIG companies - nothing new in that - what is ironic is that the BIG companies were themselves tiny upstarts just a few years ago... Google did not start as a HUGE enterprise worth billions - it started as two guys in a garage. Same for Feedburner...</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">There is no point in trying to stop the process. It will go on whether you like it or not. </SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">The message is LOUD - find an area of data that is NOT being addressed and create an enterprise that aggregates data and processes it into useful information. Any of us could have created YouTube or SecondLife or FeedBurner... Those guys put in the sweat equity to make it a success. </SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">Find an area that is NOT being addressed and start to work.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"></FONT><FONT face="Arial"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">Alex Randall</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">Professor of Communication - Univ of the Virgin Islands</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">Former Owner - Boston Computer Exchange</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">Burak Wrote: </SPAN></FONT><BR>You've probably following the recent news about the small scale <SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN><BR>social web 2.0 companies being acquired by giant corporations (e.g., <SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN><BR>StumbleUpon acquired by Ebay, Feedburner acquired by Google). <SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN><BR>Feedburner tracks your blog's RSS feed statistics and shows the <SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN><BR>number of subscribers momentarily, daily, weekly, monthly, and <SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN><BR>yearly. Now all your data is changing hands, from Feedburner to Google.<BR><BR>I wonder how you feel about it?<BR><BR>I think this is an important moment to pay attention to how inhumane <SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN><BR>the data ownership laws in USA: One who aggregates data owns it.<BR></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>