[TankGirl]

Check this P2P Manifesto from Marco Montemagno, an Italian new media expert. I think he captures very well the current development trends and his projection of the near future is close to my own projection. Here are some quotes:

About media business:

Media business – same of all the other businesses - will have to front an highly interconnected future, made of social networks, instantaneous multidimensional, multiplatform, delocalized, communications.

About our shared future:

The first unavoidable step will be that file sharing will evolve to social sharing, a context in which the exchange of data it will comprise hundred of other sort of data exchange (contacts, bookmarks, jobs data, etc).

With social sharing it will not be more imaginable to limit the sharing of data, audio or video, drown as they will be inside of other data and macro structures of data.

It will not be possible anymore to control the data exchange, in an atmosphere made of billions of exchanges every minute, everywhere and of any type (also with mesh networking technologies and similar).

Tracking the sharing will become impossible, because will exist not only the web; a multitude of different devices will be the Net and part of the Net, in the same time.

P2P will move towards a shape of “PnetP”, where it will be integrated into wider data sharing, inside more and more structured social networks.

About 'networkers':

Will emerge a new figure: “file networkers”.

File networkers will be all the persons able to create social networks - as an example - musical, constituted from thousands of contacts, endorsements and connections.

The number and the quality of the contacts will decide the hierarchy of file networkers.

File networkers will become an important media business authority, the expert prompter; the unreplaceable guide in order to find the way, among the infinity of available contents.

To have the best file networkers, will be the challenge of the PnetP market of tomorrow.

The swappers of today will become the most wanted “file networkers”, paradoxically, the most desired allied of the Majors.

How many files are you able to share?

With who?

Which quality?

How fast?

The information that today characterize a "criminal", tomorrow will characterize the "go to guy" of Media business.

Create wide and authoritative artistic social networks, through which spread their own jobs, will be one of the main challenges that the Artists and the Majors will have to face.

There are some feedback posts in his blog following the manifesto, and you can find a good in-depth review by Robin Good here.

- tg