By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Decentralising the Internet
Jason Prado, New Socialist, 2018/10/11
This is a pretty good article overall but would have benefited a lot from some clear definitions at the start. So here we go: by centralized, we mean essentially that everybody uses the same server (ie., everybody uses the same URL, for example, facebook.com). More...

Rent Vs. Own in the Internet Space
James Lambert, .eduGuru, January 17, 2013

Nice analogy. Would you spend $20,000 to upgrade your renatl apartment? No, of course not, you could lose your investment on a whim of the landlord. But companies are investing proportionally large amounts of money into 'rented' space on Twitter, Facebook and other internet landlord platforms. More...

Mastering the Internet of Everything
Harold Jarche, June 3, 2014
Harold Jarche writes, "Many people are just figuring out Web 1.0, mastering their web browsers, email and the like. Others are getting into Web 2.0, using social media to connect to people and join communities of practice. And now along comes the internet of everything (IoE). How will we be able to master this new network paradigm, or will it master us?" Jarche says it's about finding balance. More...

Internet to ITU: Stay Away from My Network
These days I wonder whether our open internet is soon to be a thing of the past. There is no real need for open communication on the part of those content, software and telecommunications companies controlling large parts of the net. Indeed, freedom to communicate creates for them a number of problems, everything from viruses and spam to piracy to political activism. More...

The Tangled Internet: Is It Time For a New One?
"The soul of the Internet is up for grabs," says the author, and I have to agree. The wide open free internet has become a haven for spam artists and other low-life. But blocking the spam may result in a closed, proprietary 'secure' and 'trusted' internet that stifles free expression and open content as much as it does spam and viruses. More...

Quality of Learning and the New Learner
Rod was kind enough to compress the audio tracks from two of my talks in Canberra - I did a third, but was foolish enough to use Internet Explorer and Audacity - which has never given me problems before - stopped recording after 27 minutes. Anyhow, the audio files are here and here. Please note that these are temporary locations - I'll give them a permanent home once I get to a place that has something like broadband. More...

Mr. Minister, Please Protect The Public Interest
Like many European nations, Canada is under pressure to ratify the new and sterner provisions of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) regulations. As Michael Geist writes, "U.S. broadcasters and the MPAA have actively lobbied for the creation of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations. This treaty would grant broadcasters increased powers over who may control, transmit, or record broadcast signals. The U.S. would even like to extend this power to Webcasts, which could be interpreted to cover Internet downloads." But if the Canadian government thinks ratification will take the pressure off, it is wrong. More...

It's Just the 'internet' Now
Somebody else in the world finally agrees with me. I have been resolutely using the lower case i and w to spell internet and web since, well, ever. Now Wired News finally agrees. More...

Internet publishing attracting academics
An odd quirk in the headline, as open access publishing is described as 'internet publishing'. But, truth be told, there is a lot in common. The idea of the internet - as I remind everyone who will listen, and even some who won't - is free and open access to information. More...