Prosumer
May 19th, 2008I came across the term ‘Prosumer’ during the course of my research. It was coined in 1980 by futurist Alvin Toffler in ‘The Third Wave’, but has increasingly been applied to the Web 2.0 collaborative processes where users unite to create products to meet their demands. Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia, although flawed are all good examples of this concept.
Second Life is perceived as being the ultimate prosumer’s site and the number of residents in this virtual world (13,670,970 million to date) is evidence of its popularity. Philip Rosedale who founded Second Life intended that his online collaborative community would advance the human condition, but unfortunately it is a consequence free world which in turn appears to encourage the negative as well as the positive aspects of the human condition. However Second Life has the potential for excellence as a learning source and with many universities, libraries, galleries etc embracing this technology it is hoped that:
“The web will work for us best when the power of mass collaboration orders the chaos of mass self expression.”
(’We think: Mass innovation not mass production’, Profile Books Limited, London, 2008. p.36)
