Enter Facebook. The site began as a free but closed system. It required not just registration but an acceptable email address (from a university, or later, from any school). Google was forbidden to search through its servers. By the time it opened to the general public in 2006, its clublike, ritualistic, highly regulated foundation was already in place. Its very attraction was that it was a closed system. Indeed, Facebook’s organization of information and relationships became, in a remarkably short period of time, a redoubt from the Web — a simpler, more habit-forming place. The company invited developers to create games and applications specifically for use on Facebook, turning the site into a full-fledged platform. And then, at some critical-mass point, not just in terms of registration numbers but of sheer time spent, of habituation and loyalty, Facebook became a parallel world to the Web, an experience that was vastly different and arguably more fulfilling and compelling and that consumed the time previously spent idly drifting from site to site. Even more to the point, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg possessed a clear vision of empire: one in which the developers who built applications on top of the platform that his company owned and controlled would always be subservient to the platform itself. It was, all of a sudden, not just a radical displacement but also an extraordinary concentration of power. The Web of countless entrepreneurs was being overshadowed by the single entrepreneur-mogul-visionary model, a ruthless paragon of everything the Web was not: rigid standards, high design, centralized control.
Janet Dykstra on 19 Nov 12Afghanistan has launched a new literacy program that enables Afghan women deprived of a basic education during decades of war to learn to read and write using a mobile phone.
Pearl Phaovisaid on 20 Nov 12This is really deep, Janet. I sense that sometimes there's a double standard between our expectations of what children's education should be versus adult education. There's always push-back when we consider using mobile devices as a primary teaching tool for kids. But I sense there's less push-back when we offer it in adult education. Is this because we think adults can learn better on their own? Or perhaps teachers are important in children's socialization process? Or that education is a basic right for all children, but not necessarily for adults? At the core, these women were once children deprived of an education during their most formative years.
