May 1, 2009 26 Comments

The Web is Your City

SOBCon 2009 Chicago

In the “not exactly applicable and actionable” department, some thoughts:

The web is your city. You build the roads (links). You create the buildings (sites). You make the value and the commerce by sharing. You create parks and recreation. You decide on entertainment. You make and you unmake.

Are you more focused on the business? Are you an entertainer? Do you even want to be the mayor and planner of this city? If not, where would you see yourself functioning?

And now, think about this:

The web isn’t actually a “physical” place, as such. But it can be. With tools like BrightKite, the web starts to touch the physical and back again. You can find information about the Internet of things and object hyperlinking. Things are starting to communicate with us. There’s a twittering bridge, and a laundromat and what else will you invent?

If the web is your city, what matters to you? If the other users of the web, the other things, the other places, are things you want to integrate into your own city (because I feel we all have our own cities), how do they connect?

What does this make you think about?

Related posts:

  1. One Day In New York City

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  • http://www.fogofeternity.com/ fogofeternity

    Heh, made me remember a post I made last year about how most people can get easily lost in the 'city' that is in the internet ('Lost on the Internet'). That most people are here as tourists, and the tech savvy are the people who live here. It's our responsibility to help others, and to be planning the city (or all our cities) so that people don't get lost and mugged in a back alley somewhere!

  • http://aquestionofperspective.com/ edelbonis

    It makes me think about the balance between the stuff in the clouds and the stuff I can hold in my hands… and the difference (or not) between relationships formed in the clouds vs. face-to-face.

  • http://www.newmarkstudiosonline.com Jennifer Tutwiler

    First, awesome photo of Chicago! Second, this is a truly intriguing way to look at a person's activity on the web. It really fits in with some things I've been thinking about lately about being a business on the web and balancing that with being a person, first and foremost. I'm going to continue this line of thinking based on the “city” concept. Thanks Chris!

  • jmctigue

    Like any good city, there are place you like to go and hang out – your “haunts”. And like any good haunt, these place constantly provide good content – be it food, drink, entertainment or information. The Web just makes it easier to find and store these places in a convenient spot. Someday the disconnect between real and virtual place will start to disappear (I'm thinking of the Star Trek virtual reality deck here), then it will be the best of both “worlds”.

  • http://www.mutinyware.com Merlee

    Reminds me of when I worked at GM several years ago. I worked in the IS&S department, and our Intranet was called “Trucktown”. All of our apps and sites were related to areas in Trucktown. We even had an amazing image painted to represent it. It really worked quite well as a visualisation tool.

  • http://www.EatMedia.com David Cutler

    This “city” you speak about is digi-real… where digital meanderings help make real carbon interactions better. Your IMS conference earlier this week proves how valuable face-to-face interactions are to our collaboration and progress. (Thanks for making it great, BTW)

    Don't you love how Netflix used the best of digital (customizable db of favorite movies) with the best of delivery (U.S. Postal to our doors)?

    As Netflix evolves to exclusively digital activities, I don't think us people will … Hey – let's twetup and go bowling!

  • http://www.gapingvoid.com Hugh MacLeod

    Wow. I can see my old office building in the picture. “Memories….” ;-)

  • http://ellencrimitrent.typepad.com Ellen Crimi-Trent

    I am the Mayor, the baker and the candlestick maker of my city. I am focused on entertaining with business in mind. I think cities are far from boring so why should mine be. In my city I hope to connect more and entertain more as well as inform. I think the cities that do not think of the people that live in them or connect to them are missing the point. Why be in the city if you do not use it to its full potential. Thats all I have to say!

  • mightymorfin

    the whole world is one place, we are all connected some how. welcome to the network

  • http://jobshouts.com Mike

    Interesting way of putting it Chris. What came to mind was that your sites visitor's are the city's population. How can you make your city more attractive to your inhabitants. Very much like real mayors do, build on the community, make it a place where people want to 'live'

  • http://www.sm4sc.com Gradon Tripp

    I'm the community organizer. The one that brings the businesses, entertainers and everyday people together for the common good.

    The web is my city, and I want it to be the best it can be.

  • http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

    You've got it, Mayor Mike. Thanks for visiting my city. I'm thinking exactly this.

  • http://www.affiliate-rocks.blogspot.com Julius Orias

    Great information Chris, I was thingking for running a Mayor now in my city, just kidding :) Anyways, building up relationships is the key to success in life, especially with the economy is in recession, but working online is the
    easiest experience for me and it does pay my monthly bills.

    Cheers,
    Julius

  • http://www.netwitsthinktank.com frank barry

    Makes me think about running a city (blog/web site) on the web. What type of city would i be? How would i build, connect, share with other cities …

    Mostly i think “what would make people visit and want to come back to my city” …

    It's not an easy thing to do, run a city that is. And it's even harder to run a city that people want to come visit/hang out continually.

    http://twitter.com/franswaa

  • http://empiricism7aisle.blogspot.com/ Rebecca

    Interesting post — sometimes it seems like the internet has too many people vying to be mayor.

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  • http://www.everythinginorder.wordpress.com Carole Hicks

    Here's one person who does NOT want to be the Mayor. I want to be that kewl bike messenger person that goes really fast in and out of traffic where the cars are standing still and I'm in fantastic shape and have a tan and all the sad people are sitting in their cars smoking and drinking bad coffee…and I have mac earbuds in and I'm listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers on my ipod. (this fantasy world is fun…must remember to do this more often)…thanks Chris! — Carole http://twitter.com/carole_hicks

  • http://www.cleverwebtech.com cleverwebtech

    Wrote an article like this about a week ago: http://cleverwebtech.com/2009/04/22/internet-tr…

    Brian
    cleverwebtech.com

  • http://dannybrown.me dannybrown

    I like to think of myself as the owner of the only Internet cafe in town.

    See, the town I live in is a small place. We don't have huge infrastructures; we don't have massive grids for public transport. I had to take out a grant just to open my cafe in the first place.

    But open it I did. And in the early days, I lost a lot of money. Sure, I was in business, and the business of business is to make money.

    But I knew that wasn't the way I should run my cafe. At least, not initially,

    No, instead, I opened up my cafe to everyone. I was the host, but I was also the guest. I threw the party, but I also listened to the music that was being played/

    Soon, people talked about this cafe where the Internet was free and people came to share their stories. And when it got busy, people were happy to pay to keep the service. And I was happy to work even more to keep the service people wanted.

    Internet cafes – cities wouldn't be the same without them.

  • http://www.reachpersonalbranding.com williamarruda

    Hi Chris. I love the way you think. I think of the web is one of my cities. I have two cities – the real world and the virtual world. Although you can live in one city, it is much more fun and productive to live in both – creating connections between them. I tell my personal branding clients to take all of their traditional real world personal branding activities (speaing, writing articles, attending networking functions, etc.) and connect them with the euivalent in the virtual world. Then, your personal brand is consistent online and off.

    Best.
    William
    http://www.reachcc.com

  • http://openmode.ca Malcolm Bastien

    The first idea I start to think of with this idea, which has sort of been spread around before is that Facebook was building that “online” city of your from your real world city, and at the same time, blogging and twittering both build your online world more from scratch – it doesn't necessarily yet exist in the real world.

    Besides that little idea, I would want to build a city that fills people's need and help making it someplace they want to be.

  • http://www.gabetaviano.com Gabe Taviano

    The web will never be my city. Suggesting that it is requires me leaving the culture I've been placed in. And that leaving would demand that I spend more time online with people I will mostly never meet than time I have to give to those around me. I could go on, but won't.

  • http://www.KolbeMarket.com BarbaraKB

    Agree w/Gabe. I understand what you're trying to say here, Chris but it's a stretch for me. Perhaps because I love my city, Cincinnati and have way too much respect & love & care for the people (PLURAL) who built it. No one person builds a city, it takes *people.*

  • http://viralfollowers.com/libertyed/vu ED

    I had never thouhgt of a blog as city of oneself. But as I think of what you mean. It makes a lot of sence, when designing one's blog. Links are the street, that lead into more Links to other parts of interesting locations, more links. You build your site for commerce, so to create a wealth of shared information. This in returns builds commerce for a city or your blog.
    Very interesting way at looking at your blog as a city. I must say Chris, an outstanding way of looking at blog sites. A big thank you Chris, as I ponder my new design and layout of my new commercial gateway to the world….?

  • http://viralfollowers.com/libertyed/vu ED

    I had never thouhgt of a blog as city of oneself. But as I think of what you mean. It makes a lot of sence, when designing one's blog. Links are the street, that lead into more Links to other parts of interesting locations, more links. You build your site for commerce, so to create a wealth of shared information. This in returns builds commerce for a city or your blog.
    Very interesting way at looking at your blog as a city. I must say Chris, an outstanding way of looking at blog sites. A big thank you Chris, as I ponder my new design and layout of my new commercial gateway to the world….?

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