The World of Ends

Doc Searls and David Weinberger have written a manifesto in the vein of The Cluetrain Manifesto:

World of Ends
What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else

When it comes to understanding the net, many people suffer from Repetitive Mistakes Syndrome, failing to realize that, in a nutshell,

1. The Internet isn’t complicated
2. The Internet isn’t a thing. It’s an agreement.
3. The Internet is stupid.
4. Adding value to the Internet lowers its value.
5. All the Internet’s value grows on its edges.
6. Money moves to the suburbs.
7. The end of the world? Nah, the world of ends.
8. The Internet’s three virtues:
   a. No one owns it
   b. Everyone can use it
   c. Anyone can improve it
9. If the Internet is so simple, why have so many been so boneheaded about it?
10. Some mistakes we can stop making already

The net is simple, simple, simple. And simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

When Craig Burton describes the Net’s stupid architecture as a hollow sphere comprised entirely of ends, he’s painting a picture that gets at what’s most remarkable about the Internet?s architecture: Take the value out of the center and you enable an insane flowering of value among the connected end points. Because, of course, when every end is connected, each to each and each to all, the ends aren’t endpoints at all.

This is important stuff and it doesn’t take long to read. Don’t miss David Isenberg’s Rise of the Stupid Network

Posted by Jay Cross at March 8, 2003 11:41 AM | TrackBack