The Greens ceased being a single issue party years ago, if they ever were. I joined the Greens because they were the only party genuinely committed to human rights/social justice principles, not because of the environmental policies although I do support those. The Greens have policies on a broad range of issues which can be checked out on their web site. Interestingly, the policies are developed by a process of extensive consultation with members with input actively encouraged with the aim of achieving consensus. Democracy at work!

I agree with rossco. The greens have a high profile on social justice and human rights issues, as well as environmental ones.

That is why I'd like to see them gain the balance of power in the Senate. They'd keep Rudd Labor honest. Far more so than the fading Nationals or Nelson's ragtag Liberals. However the Greens have a low profile on digital economy issues.

Lyn,
the dynamic flow of the internet is Web 2 and user generated content. That is the liberating force. Social networking internet sites are not merely time wasters or means for teens to organise parties and share music. The use of social networking sites is causing a major shift in the internet’s function and design as Web2 becomes the social networking platform.

Social media such as blogs, podcasts and wikis have been increasingly present across the museum, library, archive and gallery sector. These social networking technologies have provided a platform and public face for conversations, collaborations and co-created content to be seen, accessed and distributed to a broad audience.

Global software piracy is big business. A report from the Business Software Alliance notes that across the globe, $2 in illegal software is racked up for every $1 in legitimate sales. In some countries, such as Albania and Zimbabwe, virtually all software is pirated. In several big markets, notably Russia and China, more than 80 percent of software is illegal.

Rossco, Nan,
The Greens have become much better at letting people know they're more than a single issue party. It's getting harder for hysterics to paint them that way.

Peter,
It's getting harder to keep on top of developments in all the domains where this sort of change is happening. I get what you're saying about user generated content, but at the same time there's an expectation that we can access anything we want on the internet, including copyrighted content, and nobody can stop it. The thing I find most interesting though is the cultural change, how consumer expectations and ideas about what's normal has shifted from buying to sharing.

That this has reached a tipping point where some of the most powerful corporations in the world are having to reconsider their business model is pretty amazing. That a bunch of people can form a viable political party on networking and the wiki model is also pretty amazing.

Arrrrr, the pirate party, shiver me timbers it's the next big thing maties.

Well we need to get an opposition from somewhere.

Lyn I think we tend to expect social and institutional change to happen too quickly. All sorts of predictions were made about the internet and when most of them haven't happened, it's easy to conclude they were rubbish. But I think what happens is that the changes occur a generation or two later than was technologically possible, and it's a very messy process that we're all in the middle of so it's hard to step back and observe it.

Personally I'm surprised at how wikis are being adopted all over the place as management tools. They allow collaborative real-time decision-making without hierarchies or time-wasting communication channels. If they prove effective, they will present real challenges to conventional governmental processes because informed, interested citizens will demand the right to participate in policy-making and there will be no logistical or practical reason why they shouldn't. Democracy can be decentralised, in other words, to allow decisions to be made by people who actually know something about the issue.

It won't happen tomorrow but I bet it will start to happen somewhere within 10 years.

Ken,
Agree with everything you've said there. My favourite prediction about the internet was the information superhighway Bill Gates was promising way back when. Everything was going to be super efficient with experts at our beck and call.

Look what actually happened. Everyone has a cat blog and a much greater choice of conspiracy theories to choose from. Gates apparently didn't anticipate the masses getting access to the means of production.

Lyn,
You say:

I get what you're saying about user generated content, but at the same time there's an expectation that we can access anything we want on the internet, including copyrighted content, and nobody can stop it.

Flickr is one driver of user generated content---the digital camera is changing the way we create our visual world, including Youtube. Another is peer-to-peer music.

Gary,
There are parallel things going on from an analytical point of view. There's plenty of user generated content in the produsage sense, and some of that uses existing content like kids using copyright music on their scootering videos. Some, like Flickr, is mostly original content.

There's also the accessible and the inaccessible. Anyone can 'steal' music for example, but you still can't access academic research published in shut down journals even if you participated in the research.

Public expectations about access have changed.