"Peer-to-peer is key"

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_25/b3888606.htm

Q&A With MIT's Nicholas Negroponte The cyber-soothsaying author of Being Digital looks at what's next: "Peer-to-peer is key"

Q: Which new products or services are likely to make the biggest splash?

A: Peer-to-peer is key. I mean that in every form conceivable: cell phones without towers, sharing leftover food, bartering, etc. Furthermore, you will see micro-wireless networks, where everyday devices become routers of messages that have nothing to do with themselves. Nature is pretty good at networks, self-organizing systems. By contrast, social systems are top-down and hierarchical, from which we draw the basic assumption that organization and order can only come from centralism.

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http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_17/b3830613.htm