So, how is #OMN different from Web 2.0? The short answer is, it isn’t trying to rebuild Web 2.0. It is trying to recover what Web 1.0 got right, while keeping the useful UX lessons of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 took much of the openness of Web 1.0, wrapped it in better UX, and then turned it into the #dotcons – centralised, privatised platforms that captured and monetised the value of the #openweb.
#OMN takes a different path – the basic idea flows rather than ownership. Instead of everything being centred on individual accounts, owned databases and personal content silos, media objects can flow between trusted nodes. Media comes in, are curated and grouped into Stories, and those Stories then flow back into the network as new media objects.
That makes #OMN feel like Web 1.5, it keeps the Web 1.0 openness, decentralisation and interoperability, but adds some of the better usability lessons from Web 2.0. The difference is that we’re not bringing back the centralised ownership model.
In #OMN, an instance isn’t primarily a collection of individual social-media accounts. It is more like a node in a shared media flow, providing curation through media objects and collective Stories. Users can still exist in the underlying software, it’s a balance, but they don’t need to be pushed to the surface as the centre of the #OMN network.
This also changes how we think about participation. You don’t necessarily have to “own” the media to participate in it. You can contribute, curate, tag, connect, remix, archive and pass things on. As we put it – less ownership, more participation, more flow, more commons.
The aim is also to get away from the popularity contests of social media. Objects move through the federation towards the nodes and communities where they have value. Things that aren’t useful don’t necessarily need to be centrally deleted, the network can be deliberately lossy, allowing some things to fade while other things are carried forward. Though instances can choice to save everything if they can scale this, even apparently useless material might become useful as compost for future work.
And importantly, #OMN is not social media, it is about news and archiving, with governance further down the road. It works alongside social media rather than trying to become another social-media platform.
The bigger idea is that we shouldn’t have to choose between the open but sometimes awkward Web 1.0 and the polished but enclosed Web 2.0. Like the #Fediverse we balance the best of both, Web 1.0 openness + Web 2.0 UX + today’s federated infrastructure = Web 1.5. Not a return to the past, not another #dotcon. A reboot of the #openweb, using what we have learned since.
#MakingHistory #OMN #openweb #4opens #Fediverse #FOSS #Web1 #Indymediaback #commons
