A manifesto for the new Web from building43

Building43 is the lat­est Robert Scoble/​Rackspace ven­ture, a kind of online com­mu­nity space to develop the future of the Web. (Or some­thing like that.) I am typ­i­cally sus­pi­cious of grand ven­tures by lumi­nar­ies — so often they fail to live up to expec­ta­tions. Still, I’m will­ing to give it a chance — and, hope­fully, to trans­late some of its mes­sage to the legal world.

Scoble’s “man­i­festo” is a good place to start. It’s a 10-​​point list that many who seek to become a des­ti­na­tion point on today’s Web would do well to con­sider, whether they are attor­neys or developers:

1. Live in real time.

2. Build on other people’s technology.

3. This is an industry-​​wide effort.

4. Teach, don’t just hype.

5. We’re a decen­tral­ized community.

6. Be open.

7. Link to the best.

8. Be two-​​way in every­thing we do.

9. Build a com­mu­nity of friends.

10. Stay up to date.

I’ll be keep­ing an eye on the site and, if use­ful ideas and approaches emerge, I’ll pass them on — with a law & tech­nol­ogy spin, of course.