This is the second, more detailed part of the readings, studies, lessons, articles and essays I have found online about the theory and analysis of the web. The first part was relatively small, I admit, but I hope this list will keep you reading for some time.

Copyright and the Commons

Free Culture [Lawrence Lessig] : A discussion on the current laws of copyright and their implication to innovation and exchange of ideas.

Free for All [Peter Wayner] : An introduction the cyberculture of linux and its results in free software development.

The Right to Read [Richard M. Stallman] : A political, ideological essay on SPA (Software Publisher’s Association).

Hacker Crackdown [Bruce Sterling] : The history of hacker subculture during the 1990s. Cory Doctorow made an audiobook of it, which I edited for better listening. You can download it here [torrent].

The wealth of Networks: How social production transforms market and Freedom [Yochai Benkler] : A look at the economical aspects of networks, property and the commons.

Communications Infrastructure Regulation and the Distribution of Control Over Content [Yochai Benkler] : With the argument, that current infrastructures of communication and distribution have a negative impact on individual autonomy and public, Benkler suggests a new model.

For more texts of Yochai Benkler, visit his homepage benkler.org.

Open University Seminars

Network security lesson : A Master’s level lesson on networks. How they function and therefore how can they be protected.

Information on the Web : An introductory lesson, teaching tactics to find what you are looking for online. As I said, introductory.

Sociological studies of virtual worlds

My tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World [Julian Dibbell] : A sort of ethnographic study on the social life of the LambdaMoo virtual world, which thrived in the early 1990s. If you have read Sherry Turkle’s “Life on the Screen“, you get the picture.

The Online World [Odd de Presno] : The structure of the online world and how to take advantage of your time and effort in it. Pretty basic.

Network Theory & Social Networks

Scale Free Networks [Albert Laszlo Barabasi] : A very good essay to understand the basics of scale free networks and how the internet is interconnected.

Taming Complexity [Albert Laszlo Barabasi] : Like “Scale Free Networks”, an introductory approach to the subject.

The physics of the Web [Albert Laszlo Barabasi] : The structure and dynamics of the Internet.

These three essays of Barabasi can give a very good overview of the way the web is connected, the role of hubs, the importance of linkage, etc. I really like his work and I definetely suggest his book “Linked” on the same thematology [not free to download].

That sneaky exponential [David Reed] : Why participation in social networks counts. The next step after Metcalfe’s Law is Reed’s Law. Very insightful and very good argumented.

The augmented social Network: building identity and trust into the next-generation internet [Ken Jordan, Jan Hauser, Steven Forster] : The six degrees of seperation seem just too many. “This paper proposes the creation of an Augmented Social Network (ASN) that would build identity and trust into the architecture of the Internet, in the public interest, in order to facilitate introductions between people who share affinities or complementary capabilities across social networks.”

Virtual Interactive Communication: A bicultural Surve [Dave Ambrose] : A theoretical study on Web 2.0 and social networks such as Facebook.

Attention economy of the Web

Propaganda [Edward Bernays] : To understand how attentiveness of the collective mind works, the strategies of propaganda are certainly the foundations.

The economy of attention [Georg Franck] : A very good essay on the attention economy, from an expert of the subject.

Attention and Participation in the social Web [Jiannis Sotiropoulos] : Narcissistically enough, this is my master thesis on the attention economy of the social web. Network theory, sociology, mass psychology and emergent behavior are used in this study. I always welcome your feedback. The thesis is also in wiki format.

 

Software vs. Hardware

There is no software [Friedrich Kittler] : A complex, but very interesting point of view, why there are no software but only hardware.

On the implementation of Knowledge - towards a theory of hardware [Friedrich Kittler] : Once again why the relationship between hardware and software remain a paradox.
More works of Friedrich Kittler. His writings are very theoretical and provocative, but always interesting to read. Some texts are in German.