Openness and Sharing

"Laws That Choke Creativity" by Lawrence Lessig

Part of what has allowed the web to grow so quickly is the generally "open" culture that has dominated. In this sense, "open" refers to the fact that the code you receive from a web server to execute in your browser is visible, modifiable, and saveable. HTML, CSS and Javascript delivered to your browser may be obfuscated, but it can never be truly locked up. This is a critical aspect of web technology and designed into the core of HTTP, HTML, and related standards.

This openness has been good for the growth of the web because techniques and approaches have proliferated more rapidly due to the visibility of the code that is generated. This has also engendered a more open approach to developing for the web in general to the extent that the most dominant technologies online are "open source" technologies. Python, PHP, mySQL, Apache, Postgres, Ruby, Rails, and many more applications the web depends upon are open source. All of the web standards are open source, and often the most popular tools that facilitate those web standards, such as OpenSSL, are also open source.

The openness of software has bled into other forms of cultural production, too. Organizations such as Creative Commons and the Participatory Culture Foundation have put forth tools to help users create open and sharable cultural artifacts.

The web is naturally inclined towards openness. Using that inclination as an advantage can make it easier to grow a website.

Although a web business may not open source its technology, there are still lessons to be learned from the open source nature of the web. It is better to make content available in myriad ways and allow users the ability to choose how they wish to engage with your media. It is better to provide convenient linking and sharing capabilities, and to allow the content to go wherever users are going, rather than forcing people onto a company domain or platform in order to interact with the content.

The best thing a website can earn to help with popularity and search engine rankings is a link. The more fans, clients or even competitors link to your site, the more search engines will value the content. Making it as easy as possible for people to share and publish links to your content is crucial to success online.

But leveraging the goodwill of your users and clients does not come without an obligation. You must respect the intent of users who share your content. You cannot warp their words to your specific marketing purposes. It may sometimes be OK to use user-generated content in advertising, and other times it may not be OK. This is a tricky area to navigate, and a part of the industry that tests new edges of ethics and acceptability on a daily basis. It's important for a business to keep in contact with users and the broader web community to gauge how they are being perceived.