If you want to get a good understanding of the future of the web, and its impact on business, then I recommended you spend a bit of time watching these short presentations by Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics and Macrowikinomics.

Don argues that the industrial economy is running out of gas, giving way to a new age where knowledge contained in the brains of everyone can be interconnected. With new Web-enabled technologies, individuals inside and outside traditional organizational structures can collaborate like never before, a development that is changing the deep structures and architecture of corporations and requiring businesses to rethink how they innovate, create goods and services, and engage with the world.

Don asks, how will knowledge work and business process change as a result of more streamlined Web-enabled collaboration? How can companies find the leadership for this rethinking of their modus operandi?

If you enjoy the videos, you might like to know that Don Tapscott will be speaking to members of the collaborative Social Media Leadership Forum later in the year.

Some people like to refer to social media as ‘another channel’, which I think is misleading.

I’m reading a book by Andrew McAfee on Enterprise 2.0, and he refers to email, phone texting and some types of instant messaging as channels, as they essentially keep communications private. Information sent via channels, in this context, is not widely visible or searchable.

The alternative to a channel, McAfee says, is what he calls a platform. He argues that platforms are simply collections of digital content where contributions are globally visible and persistent. Although he adds that platforms can be restricted to an R&D team, for example. He goes on to explain that every web site, intranet, extranet – and the internet itself – are all platforms.

This, I think, helps to clarifying thinking, and supports the view that increasingly the internet is becoming the new platform for the economy and for companies, as it becames ever more pervasive in our physical lives.

Ah, how would we cope without Twitter? Where would we post all our witty commentaries, follow our favourite celebrities and track the latest news stories?

We’ve already discussed in a previous post what the world was like before the web. Personally, I’m not sure Britain’s Got Talent would be quite as funny without the background noise of Twitter. It’s also been wonderfully entertaining for long train journeys home, as well as interesting and informative when it comes to more serious issues.

This infographic from HubSpot rather brilliantly sums up how the world would be without Twitter.

Source: Social Media Today

Over the last couple of years, a number of celebrities have taken out super injunctions to stop the press not only publishing details of a situation they don’t want made public, but also of the injunction itself.

Unfortunately for these celebrities who have spent thousands on keeping their secrets out of the papers, Twitter users are not covered by this injunction. One Twitter user in particular has made it their quest to reveal all the secrets protected by the injunction (although it’s argued by some that more than a few of the claims are in fact false).

So, while the front page might be clear of the actual indiscretions, a simple keyword search on Twitter will unveil all anyway.

This situation highlights the current legal system’s lack of reach when it comes to online services like Twitter, which has remained a haven for free-speech. While Twitter does remove offensive and spammy content, it doesn’t usually get involved in personal disputes. But this might all be about to change.

The PCC (Press Complaints Commission) is assessing whether the Twitter accounts of newspapers and journalists should be monitored, and whether a journalist’s tweets are in fact an extension of their employer’s editorial content. This could lead to journalists facing legal action, even if they’re tweeting from their own personal account.

Whether this will eventually lead to censorship throughout the social network remains to be seen. I doubt it’s an option though, for so many reasons. What body could undertake such a large task? What about anonymous accounts? Would people stay if a monitoring body took over?

What impact do you think the super injunction will have on Twitter users?