Smart Mobs

Howard Rheingold, the father of virtual communities, is already on to the next revolution - Smart Mobs. He's written a new book and created an updated nice website about it. The revolutionary potential of Wi-Fi is that it enables the emergence of an ad-hoc, on-the-fly, real-time, constantly in-flux wireless and decentralized internet. A company Mesh Networks, has already risen to capitalize on this trend. Everyone becomes a node in the emergent network. The beauty of this scheme is that it would completely by-pass all means of centralized control, and empower old-style internet (i.e. anonymous and uncensored) communications from the bottom-up using the unregulated spectrum of garage door openers. Obviously, the emergence of such a network levels the playing field all over again, and therefore scares the crap out of the big boys. Why? Because such a network could easily bypass all of their expensive networks and revenue streams. Will they attempt to crush this technology using legal or technological strangleholds? They are likely to try, but the tricky part is getting this spectrum regulated when nearly every remote control device in existence operates in it.