Recently, some of the ideas that I dealt with in my Master's thesis have been bubbling back to the surface. Generally, I had discussed online communities and their resistance to being commodified ('commercialized'). The old stalwarts of P2P and 'warez' are still around, and still provide a counterbalance to 'commercial' communities like MSN, eBay or even Yahoo.

We're seeing a somewhat different approach by business in how they deal with online communities, and how they have changed their model from trying to enforce old agendas into trying to leverage the strengths of the new technologies.

It's been a few years since I wrote on these topics, and since then, quite a few things have changed:

• Google and contextual text ads have revolutionized online advertising, proving it to be a viable business model
• iTunes and its online music store have legitimized (to an extent) digital music, and as they close in on 1 billion songs sold have proven it to be a viable business also
  
• Passport failed as a ubiquitous online 'key' system, and .NET has failed to become the dominant online development platform in favour of...
• ...Open Source standards! OSS has remained a strong force and has become commonplace even in commercial development
• A new flurry of sites and user communities have created a wealth of online interaction as user participation grows, and user-created content (blogging, bookmarking, etc.) sees the 'democratic' roots of the medium remain intact
  

Rather than becoming an online shopping mall with everyone swiping their 'passport' to do anything, things have continued much the same as they began on the web, and have even brought many of the claims and promises made at its outset to fruition.

That's not to say that there aren't threats to online 'culture' (RIAA - I'm looking at you), but as a one-time 'doomsayer', it is refreshing and relieving to see that things have in fact flourished in the passing years rather than withering and eroding. It's rare, and so worth noting I thought.

If you're keen on discussion, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what 'web promises' have been fulfilled, what things have or haven't been ruined by commercialization, and where you think things are headed.