Alejandro@Oxford

UPDATE: OII Webcast link

Wednesday, 7 May 2008. Gulbenkian Lecture theatre, Law Faculty, University of Oxford. OII‘s Jonathan Zittrain presents his book “The Future of the Internet – and How to Stop It“. As usual, Jonathan (or Z, as some people call him) makes a very effective and entertaining presentation. It is already the third time for me that I listen to him explaining the basic thesis of his book (though the second time it was in the Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations and in relation to the topic of Internet governance, then he gave a political/governance twist to it).

I won’t bother you with explaining you the content of his book (which I haven’t read yet) or/and his presentation. Soon, you will have the webcast on the OII website. Until then, you can watch the YouTube video of his presentation in NYC. I just wanted to make two very brief comments:

1) During his presentation I heard a lot about Jonathan’s “future of the Internet”, but not so much about “how to stop it”. I remember in the first (or perhaps in the second) time I listened to him, he develops on a couple of things that can be done to change the trend of “sterility” or “contingent generativity” (note: you should read the book or watch his presentation before understanding this bit).

2) “Generativity” (or “sterility”) are not determined but conditioned by technology. They are also (and predominantly) the result of the use of the technology and the context where it is used. Thus, the same device can generate more or less functions and applications according to who, when, where and why it is used. The continuity and contingency of these functions and applications are also related with these e.g. obviously, facebook and apple could block applications that are used on the platforms (technologies), yet they are also competing in the market and under a specific legal, socio-economic and political context which will also determines if they can actually do it (ie. blocking). If facebook eliminates a very popular application, there will reasonably be a backlash from its costumers, who will perhaps start to look for an alternative, if the market is free enough to allow the competition. If Facebook is owned by the government and does not allow competition, there will be a more contingent “generativity”, than if the market is freer and not controlled by a coercive force.