The Web and its uses have been evolving rapidly during the past decade. The widespread use of social media is now common, and is associated with the use of collaboration platforms, social networking applications and web services, personal publishing and search tools, blogs, wikis, video clips, podcasts and other forms of interlinked interactivity. This is is having deep and widespread impact in key areas such as business, education, politics, news and entertainment.
The Internet's interconnectivity enables horizontal and peer-to-peer based communications and interaction between people, whether they are friends, customers, colleagues, or citizens. This is not new, but until now humans have not been able to interact quickly (in real-time or in asynchronous time, at their choosing) with all sorts of information and knowledge.
Eventually, operating in networks will re-define business, education, politics, entertainment and other major areas of human activity. The technology to do this is now at hand ...
... but it's the anthropological, sociological and political effects on our now-established forms of power and authority that potentially will have the largest and longest-lasting impact.
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In an increasingly interconnected world, a new organizing principle is emerging ...
"Wirearchy is a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on:
- knowledge,
- trust,
- credibility,
- a focus on results
enabled by interconnected people and technology"
(Jon Husband, 1999)
