The Moose of Cyberspace
It has been great having David Post here in NYC this term. David is working on a book called Mr. Jefferson's Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace, and I can't wait for him to finish.
In the prologue, David tells the story of Jefferson fighting against the Old World belief that animals and humans degenerated in the New World — that every creature was smaller and less powerful in American than it was in Europe. To prove his point, Jefferson had an entire [dead] moose shipped to Paris and reconstituted in stuffed form in his entrance hall. There, see? Things are large in America! That moose was seven feet tall. (You can read another account of this controvery here.)
(This may be an elk, not a moose, but it is beautifully framed and I thought you might enjoy seeing it.)
David wants to put Jefferson's ideas to work in describing cyberspace as a new place – he's writing his “notes on cyberspace” to reflect Jefferson's “notes on the State of Virginia.”
The great question for me, and the question I put to my class today, is: What is the moose of cyberspace? What's the thing you'd show people to convince them that the internet is hugely different from a telephone network or a broadcast system and that entirely new things are possible there? We've got this unbelievable group-forming-network-of-networks — how do we show people what it is?
Several people said Wikipedia is the moose of cyberspace — an amazing encyclopedia created by everyone. There were also strong voices for eBay and Google. Imagine having knowledge at your fingertips, 1/4 of a second away! That's big.
So — what do you think is the moose of cyberspace?
Thanks to David Post for the idea and Catherine White for the elk/moose picture.