The re-purposing of web walled gardens

This thought struck me after replying to a post on Danah Boyd's website re Walled Gardens. She wrote a longer piece, but the crux I was responding to was this:

I mean, if you're producing content into a context, do you really want to transfer it wholesale? I certainly don't want my MySpace profile displayed on LinkedIn (even if there are no nude photos there).

For all of this rambling, perhaps i should just summarize into three points:


- If walls have value in meatspace, why are they inherently bad in mediated environments? I would argue that walls provide context and allow us to have some control over the distribution of our expressions. Walls should be appreciated, even if they are near impossible to construct.
- If robots can run around grabbing the content of supposed walled gardens, are they really walled? It seems to me that the tizzy around walled gardens fails to recognize that those most interested in caching the data (::cough:: Google) can do precisely that. And those most interested does not seem to include the content producers.
- If the walls come crashing down, what are we actually losing? Walls provide context, context is critical for individuals to properly express themselves in a socially appropriate way. I fear that our loss of walls is resulting in a very confused public space with far more visibility than anyone can actually handle.

Basically, i don't think that walled gardens are all that bad. I think that they actually provide a certain level of protection for those toiling in the mud. The problem is that i think that we've torn down the walls of the supposed walled gardens and replaced them with chain links or glass. Maybe even one-way glass. And i'm not sure that this is such a good thing. ::sigh::

So, what am i missing? What don't i understand about walled gardens?

My reply is there, but reproduced here for the click lazy...

There are walls and walls......the Olde AOL and Mobile Co's today try to create impregnable web walls, where none shall pass without paying significant tolls - the "Berlin Wall" model.

MySpace et al have different sort of walls...egress and entrance is fairly easy, but the core profile stays in situ. Thats the rule of playing there. Upsets some, many don't give a monkeys.

Is there a value to web walls? Sure - privacy and security - and the original concept of Paradise is a walled pleasure garden, the controlled environment within allows more delicate flowers to bloom (read this allegorically....).

And I think the case for walls is getting stronger - I have blogged before that I think 2007 is the year that Privacy and Trust (sides of a coin) will become major issues in Social Media, mainly because they are being ridden over roughshod right now by every vested and invested interest you can think of.

If we go back to "meatspace", in the many Dark Ages when barbarians were at the gates people didn't wait for the legions, they threw up walls around the towns pdq.

Except for Sparta of course - they gave every male that become a citizen a spear and shield and told him he was part of the Bronze Wall until he died.

I suspect, with all the abuse of privacy and trust now happening in online social media, the idea of walled gardens will start to become much more attractive over the next few years.

Or, should we be like Sparta and require every netizen to carry their own armour and be part of the web's bronze walls?

As always, after you hit "Go", the real aha hits you, and this is it - the purpose of web walls is changing now.

The new walls will not be built to keep you in...but increasingly to keep uninvited others out.

And they will be user generated walls - the rise of the Digital Lifestyle Disaggregator is nigh

Postscript...just saw this article this pm, about social media sites opening up for 3rd party developers - those walls are getting thinner all the time