"These projects all took the course's original dictum -- the application must be useful to the community -- and began to work with its corollary as well -- the community must be useful to the application." - Clay Shirky
He wrote these words in March 2004. Around this time, I met with Friendster for the first time and it rocked my world. "You mean you can see what your friends are doing online?" - I remember asking one of my co-workers.
Alex Bain sent me this article yesterday and I replied to him that if I would have read it back then, it would have changed my life. Still did a little today. Somewhere, Clay Shirky 2.0 is writing something equally brilliant. I want to read it. If you come across it, please send it to me. I don't want to be 6 years late again.