Future peek

As I climb out of my hole (I'm beginning to think I should rename this place the weekend blog) I did manage to wander onto two things that somehow are connected, or related, or something. I think.

Doc Searls wanders off into some interesting territory around linux and open source and how it relates to Tom Friedman's new book The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century and last weeks commentary on the subject. Despite my initial misgivings, Doc makes the case for reading what initially seemed like a pretty obvious observation.

The other item that seized my imagination was Jay Rosen's Are You Ready for a Brand New Beat? While the world is growing appreciably flatter all the time, these new bumps (pockets perhaps?) of online communities centered around real physical locations are popping up regularly. Follow the links and you'll see several approaches being taken (none of which covers what's happening in North Carolina, which has somehow become ground zero for a lot of the activity around inclusive community news reporting). I'm not quite sure why I'm so fascinated by the concept, but I surely am.