Stephen Colbert tries to understand the Internet: “The routers are all the people high on ecstasy?” Actually, yes!
Harvard smart-guy and a Facebook friend Jonathan Zittrain gets a guest slot on The Colbert Report to plug his new book, The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It [you can download the book, for free with certain conditions, right here], and, among other things, uses the metaphor of a mosh pit to explain how “a guy named Jon, a guy named Vint [another Facebook friend, I might add…], and a guy named Steve” (Jonathan probably also meant to mention Len and he certainly wouldn't have wanted to leave out Bob but he definitely wouldn't have mentioned Al) invented a way to move data from this side of the network to that side of the network.
During the piece, Colbert admonishes his audience after they applaud the guys who invented Kazaa and Skype. “Applauding chaos,” Colbert frowns, as he wags his finger.
“I'd like to see a way of saving the good chaos of the Internet,” Zittrain says.
“But you're against the iPhone,” Colbert says. “How can you be against the iPhone? It's like being against warm bread!”
But seriously, Jonathan, who is also celebrating the 10th anniversary this year of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard which he co-founded, has some important things to say in his book:
The Internet’s current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. Its salvation lies in the hands of its millions of users. Drawing on generative technologies like Wikipedia that have so far survived their own successes, [Zittrain's] book shows how to develop new technologies and social structures that allow users to work creatively and collaboratively, participate in solutions, and become true “netizens.”
Technorati Tags: digital politics, internet, jonathan zittrain, creative commons, stephen colbert