Increase Generativity by Streamlining the Appliance
Ethan Zuckerman writes regarding generativity:
Much of the great creativity we’ve seen on the web has happened on the server side, not the client side. I think some users will move to less flexible devices than conventional PCs, but will contribute to the diversity of the Internet by creating original text, pictures, audio and video - so long as they’re able to create this content and share it online, I’m less worried about whether the devices they use to edit and upload it are arbitrarily programmable or not.
(Regarding Jonathan Zittrain’s recent article on generativity and securing the “grid”–summarized well on a Nicholas Carr blog post.)
I like the idea of streamlining the tools of “generativity” to a low common denominator. Thinking about creating content in a developing world context, an appliance that allows users to take pictures, write captions, and upload them to a blog–aggregated by something like Ethan’s Global Voices–is just enough to get important (if not at least flavorable) ideas and participation online.
And maybe that’s all you need to encourage greater generativity. If you lower the barriers to participation–and also increase the barriers to PC-destruction (see virii and malware)–then we’ll see more voices online. Think of an even more reduced Palm Pilot with a camera and microphone.
I shudder when I say this, but then think of a MySpace that accepts content from these Palm Pilots via e-mail. But then you can have children walking around, taking pictures or video, with audio or text narration, unpacking their daily experiences.
In much fewer words, that’d be dope.