Doc Searls

Senior Editor, Linux Journal

Syndicate
59 minutes, 27.2mb, recorded 2005-12-14
Doc Searls

The live web inspires metaphors of time, humanity and freedom, in contrast to the more mundane notions of real estate and traffic on the static web. In this conference keynote, Doc Searls explores these ideas and more in his customarily entertaining and insightful summary of progress in the Syndisphere.

As a well known blogger and excellent communicator, Doc Searls has helped create and shape the roles of blogging, RSS, mashups and other clue-full (as in Cluetrain Manifesto) branches of the web tree. According to Searls, the best new ideas are often more like snowballs you roll downhill than rocks you push uphill. A rolling snowball can pick up speed and build beyond the original owner's vision. In this way, a web of producers, like stars in a constellation, has transcended the web of consumers. This live web is organized around data, time and tags, giving us a pulsing, flowing ecosystem of participation.

Searls anticipates a shift in business models on the live web where, rather than muting or skipping ads, consumers will choose to place them in their attention stream because they will meet the demand for what consumers actually want. In this world, invention and necessity are the mothers of each other in a virtuous cycle. There are a number of thorny issues to be resolved, however, such as attribution (addressed by projects like XRI and iTags), digital rights management and control of the bandwidth pipes. Searls and the audience debate the need for techies to engage politically and craft a clear message that can mobilize the action needed to establish, preserve and syndicate freedom.


Doc Searls is bestselling co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto; Sr. Editor, Linux Journal. Doc Searls is a writer, speaker and consultant on topics that arise where technology and business meet. He is the Senior Editor of Linux Journal, the premier Linux monthly and one of the world's leading technology magazines. He also runs the new Doc Searls' IT Garage, an online journal published by Linux Journal's parent company, SSC. He is co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual, a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Borders Books and Amazon.com bestseller. (It was Amazon's #1 sales & marketing bestseller for thirteen months and sells around the world in nine languages.) He also writes Doc Searls Weblog. J.D. Lasica, author of Darknet, and proprietor of ourmedia calls Doc "one of the deep thinkers in the blog movement." Doc's blog is consistently listed among the top few blogs, out of millions - by Technorati, Blogstreet and others. In August, 2005, Doc recieved the first annual Google O'Reilly Open Source Award for Best Communicator.As a writer, his byline has appeared in OMNI, Wired, PC Magazine, The Standard, The Sun, Upside, Release 1.0, Wired, The Globe & Mail and many other publications.A former radio personality, Doc has appeared on TechTV, CNBC, CNet Radio, and many networks and stations. He is a regular on The Linux Show and The Gillmor Gang podcast. His own new podcasts can be found here. Doc has consulted and/or held workshops for Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Migros, Nortel Networks, Sun Micrososystems, Xoriant, Borland, SpikeSource and many other companies.

References:

This free podcast is from our Syndicate series.

For The Conversations Network:

  • Post-production audio engineer: Stuart Hunter
  • Website editor: Liz Evans