exit strategy

Taking Open Source to Every Front

sarahcove

Assignment:

Interview Rushkoff and write up a Q&A.

Reporting page:

Douglas Rushkoff, Taking Open Source to Every Front

From religion, novels and back again. The strength of community and the dangers of crowdsourcing

Sarah Cove Interviews Douglas Rushkoff via telephone on May 18, 2007

Photo credit - Johannes KroemerDouglas Rushkoff is an author, professor, media theorist, journalist, as well as a keyboardist for the industrial band PsychicTV. His books include Media Virus, Coercion, Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism (a book which opened up the question of Open Source Judaism), Exit Strategy (an online collaborative novel), and a monthly comic book, Testament. He founded the Narrative Lab at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, a space which seeks to explore the relationship of narrative to media in an age of interactive technology.

We spoke about the notion of crowdsourcing, Open Source Religion, and collaborative narratives.

Sarah Cove: What is crowdsourcing for you?

Douglas Rushkoff: Well, I haven't used the term crowdsourcing in my own conversations before. Every time I look at, it rubs me the wrong way.

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5/23/07

Exit Strategy by Douglas Ruskoff

Posted March 27th, 2007 - 00:49AM by YvonneEriksen

I've done some preliminary research on Exit Strategy by Rushkoff. The novel is about Jamie, a young software savvy venture capitalist who gets caught between two conflicting groups. One group of hackers wants to destroy all of Wall Street, the other group of entrepreneurs wants to get rich by hypnotizing web users. He doesn't want to pick either side but before he can escape, he begins seeing bulls on the stock floor. Is Jamie losing his mind? What's his exit strategy?

The whole premise of the novel is it’s set in 2008 (it was written prior to July 2001) and it’s found in 2200. Rushkoff posted a free e-book online so that anyone could add annotations to the novel which explain 2008 terminology to a 2200 audience. Everyone was welcomed to co-author the pretend future. Rushkoff picked his favorite 100 annotations.

The questions remain: Is it believable that the story takes place in 2008 or does the terminology “date” the book to 2001? What does this project say about Internet marketing/businesses? Is there a place on the internet for contribution for the sake of pleasure or higher ideals –without profit in mind? How well has Exit Strategy sold? How exactly does a journalist make this into a news story? Is anyone going to join me?

3/27/07