Woodstock - the 'real' social network

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair was an event held at Max Yasgur's 600 acre dairy farm in the rural town of Bethel, New York from August 15 to August 18, 1969. An event of insane proportions that brought together close to half a million people in search of peace and music, the quintessential early version of social networking.

Wonder what happened to that 'woodstock' feeling? Where is it today?

Well, to a large extent, its gone cyber.

Consider this - "The Maldives has opened a `virtual embassy' in Second Life, the online virtual world. It is a global first. The Maldivian Government said in a statement that such embassies representing Macedonia and the Philippines are on the cards. Sweden has announced similar plans too." Second Life is an Internet-based virtual world launched in 2003. Go see the second Embassy being inaugurated on Second life.



An Embassy in Cyberspace? That's a Phantasmagorical truth my friends.

Second Life was honored at the 59th Annual Technology Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the development of online sites with user generated content.

C.K. Prahalad and M.S.Krishnan have written a book called the New age of Innovation. A real treasure trove on this subject. I'm sure some of you have heard of their famous N=1 and R=G mantra.

Prahalad (who is ranked #1 under the the most influential living management thinkers - see www.thinkers50.com) says, " The industrial system as we know it has been morphing for some time. Now it may have reached an inflection point.
Ubiquitous connectivity (e.g. cell phones and PCs), digitization,convergence of technology and industry boundaries (e.g. consumer electronics, computing, communications), and the emergence of social networks have collectively put a turbo charge on this transformation.This transformation is affecting all industries."
I can't agree more.

A fellow blogger wrote:

"Take a moment to  view the earth from space. Try to identify a few countries you know; try your best to draw country and state lines in your mind as precisely as possible. If you can do this easily, kudos. If not, you're probably like me, geographically hazy.

According to Wikipedia, a country is defined as the political division of a geographical entity. For all quirky purposes, you can choose to have other types of divisions: technical divisions, economic divisions, social divisions, environmental divisions. Or you can simply choose to divvy up geography or populations in ways that catch your fancy. Wouldn't you agree?

Divvy up like what? you ask.

Well, consider the Social Networks Republic. In this rapidly growing country there are 275 million people globally, more than the size of Indonesia and less than United States. Or consider the Kingdom of Indian Mobile Subscribers (K.I.M.S), a population of 261 million that procreates exponentially every month. The  Territory of iPhone Users, which has as many people as do Libya or Sierra Leone and  is likely to get to the size of Belgium  by October 2008."
 
Brilliant! So where's the border Mr.President?


But seriously, all this shoo-shaa has'nt yet given me my Woodstock feeling.

Hang on, let me play my old CD with the booming Richie Havens singing "With a Little Help from My Friends" and man! I know that feeling!

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