| There is a new economy emerging, one that is based on the topology of networks. The Network Economy will follow the nonlinear laws of networks, such as exponential effects, increasing returns, and other self-organizing behavior. This networkization will also affect knowledge-- the prime element in this economy. I propose a view of knowledge where texts are self-assembled, where knowledge is self-organized, and where we grow used to a universe crowded with multi-billions of documents, layered from the bottom up in foodweb-like networks. You might call this a "networked knowledge economy".
Kevin Kelly is the founding Executive Editor of Wired. He was involved in the 1993 launch of this magazine, often called by the press "the Rolling Stone of computers". He is the author of "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Economic and Social Systems". Prior to Wired, Kelly was publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Review, a journal of unorthodox technical news. Kelly was also a founder of the Well, a Sausalito-based teleconferencing system and pioneer online community, and of the annual Hackers' Conference, which in 1984 brought together three generations of legendary computer programmers for the first time. |