J5’s Blog

I just had a surreal experience with some of my best friends from high school.  Even though we all live in different states, some in New York, others in Texas, still others in Seattle and California, and myself in Boston, we were all occupying the same space tonight as we watched a live stream of the band God Street Wine.   This was the band that defined us in High School and now when we all have other priorities that keep our lives apart it still was able to evoke a kinship as we live commented on the performance over Facebook.  This reminds me of the power of Open Source communities which are drawn together through social means as well as technical.  Some of the first social networks happened over forums, mailing lists and irc.  The biggest issue we face is we are an exclusive club.  While we pretty much invented the social Internet our exclusivity pretty much means that any innovation is looked at with an air of suspicion leaving propitiatory companies like Facebook to fill that vacuum.  The question going forward is how do we turn our social know how into areas of general interest instead of just technical pursuits?  How do we open up our technology to a wider audience without “selling out”?

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