There isn’t a lot of sophistication except from social media theorists - who take a deep view of all of it in relation to culture, politics, ideology, surveillance, privacy, democracy, power and etc. Those are the issues that escape many end users (who, again, do not regard themselves as stakeholders).

I agree with Shey about the paradox - indeed. What is fundamental about open source is open and transparent and changeable terms. This is very, very different than the sneaky, sleazy, opt-out and proprietary behaviours of those corporations making supposedly web2.0 tools. I say supposedly 2.0 because the philosophies that inspired the participatory nature of 2.0 tech are all about many to many, sharing and etc. Facebook, in particular, has taken all the technical capacities of 2.0 and redefined them in entirely proprietary terms. This is the very behaviour that the early bloggers, community builders and open source creators (the people who created SOCIAL MEDIA - the Howard Rheingolds, for example) were trying to create alternatives to.

Up until the early days of virtual community and emergent social media (again, COMMUNITY based) the primary models of business were top down and proprietary. Advertisers, marketers, media and corporations TOLD US what to think and how to think about things. Along came the internet and tools for citizen media and finally the people really had a voice. “No, I DONT like your product. NO this news story is NOT balanced. NO these ideas of my race/gender/socialclass/identity are not reflective of reality … ” etc. Response, response, response. Many to many.

Public intellectuals like Henry Jenkins and others are calling attention to the freedoms we’ve achieved and trying to ensure that young people do not let these achievements slip out of reach.

What’s happening right now - right at this moment - is a full on war against the user and the open source movement. Corporations are working very hard to regain a *control* they never properly had.

click on my “website” link for more …

We’re moving away from that very slowly but I think the future is ultimately focused on widgets or portable modules that allows users to mix and match what they want on their own site. Walled cities (http://tinyurl.com/6hzs5m) such as Facebook will be forced to open up regardless because the idea of a social graph that is actually accurate and effective is in reality, free forming — and that requires open space.

Wanted to email you, but could not locate your email address on the blog. We have 2 cool widgets ( a slideshow widget and a content widget) which can help enhance site interaction and reader’s experience. Please contact me at ashishbaldua5@gmail.com to know more.

Thanks
Ashish Baldua

The paradox is getting users to accept the open culture of web 2.0 while still giving them the privacy and security options they desire.

I also believe that greater success in marketing will be achieved when businesses/developers do not impose restrictions on its users or customers (i.e. not being able to delete or remove content), but rather provide options. I know that businesses may not necessarily agree with this standpoint so I think the role of the early adopter isn’t necessarily to influence the “late majority”, but to influence the developers.

It’s hard for businesses/developers to let go of data since they are technically offering a free service. Social mediums are now what newspaper subscriptions used to be. The model continues to be “provide content/service to user with advertisement”.

While I think that through the data portability group, there may be a slight change in how users can wield their data, but until a social network officially starts to promote themselves as a medium where users have the freedom to do what they want with their data, and as an online community that does not place an iron grip over all user information — there will continue to be that tremendous reluctance to let go of user data by major developers like Facebook and Google.

They stand too much to lose to one another unless someone beats them to the game by being more open. That said, Google is sharing the social graph but not in the way we want it… yet.

As I’ve argued before, the majority of end users are “late majority” users. As such, they regard themselves as “consumers” rather than “stakeholders” of any new technology. They are not aware of their power and so they accept what they’re given. Case in point: the inability to delete or remove content from most new social media tools. Along with Opt-out models, limited user controls are coming to define the norm thanks to the lack of critical response from late majority users (something developers can bank on).

There are quite a few of us who are trying to advocate for two things: A) to help late majority users see themselves as stakeholders and influencers of better paradgims and B) to define our own terms of service for social media data:
http://melaniemcbride.net/2008/01/26/our-data-ourselves-the-users-bill-of-rights/