Map of all Arab Spring and Occupy Movement nations 2011 - Source: blatantworld.com

A dynamic year 2011 is ending: Crisis. protests, movements, system skepticism

What is in your mind? What will I have I forgotten to mention? Arab spring, occupy movement, maybe a stolen Arab spring in Egypt, maybe an awakening civill society in Russia. And kind of “cold (civil) war” in US. And ever more extreme weather conditions around the globe. Durban climate conference at the end of the year is a new confirmation of cognitive mis-mapping of the political leaders. As cognitive psychology has shown often: A certain complexity of a system cannot be handled by most of human beings, they take refuge to heuristics and kind of superstitious solution approaches.

Oh, Fukushima not to forget – for some 10,000 years – radiation is a reminder future generations did not ask for … What else? A lot of rather helpless activities to handle the debt cirisis in Europe. Angry citizens. Credibility of systems solutions going down, down, down. Politicians’ growth paradigm seems 99% unchanged. Locked in the mindset, which is the problem, not the solution. And again confirmation of the uncontrollable “innovation avalanche” of the hightech super-innovative society. News: H5N1 avian flu created in the laboratory.

Occupy the economy – New models please! 

Oh, not only bad news!!! Some weeks ago I was really surprised and excited about the announcement of a “Funky Business Barcamp” in Berlin. Was this the “mycel of transformation” reaching the economy? Will there be emerging new models how to make business in a different cultural setting, with different values and goals – and in a intrinsically sustainable manner. It was an unconventional barcamp and time will tell, whether something substantial will spread from it. I will watch this carefully and will tell if it is …

Update – related posts (oops … Cassandra complex)

• 2009 vs. 1789 – Will the crisis end in a revolution? (March 30, 2009 – detecting weak signals)
• Titanic in full speed, me, you and the Trojan horse (II) (October 23, 2010 – the economic-political world system with extreme deficit of learning capacity)

As I have said in the posts above there is a structural problem with our accelerated hightech civilization: We are witnessing two growing avalanches – the avalanche of technological solutions and the avalanche of secondary effects of these solutions. The manifold and shocking helplessness to deal with the nuclear accidents in Fukushima after the earthquake and tsunami are a strong example about this fatal dynamics.

Damage after an Earthquake and Tsunami at the Dai Ichi Power Plant. (credit: DigitalGlobe) www.digitalglobe.com

In this week I have an exciting contrasting program to this anachronistic technology. I am attending the Ecosummit 2011, where the smart green economy is meeting. That feels good.

Image source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Fukushima-Daiichi

The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) - … Definition (II) - … Solutions (III)

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Eco-Singularity – core concept, strengths and challenges

In part II a first approach has been accomplished to define the concept of “eco-singularity”:

Eco-Singularity definition (from Part II)

Eco-Singularity is the event, when our (growing) capacity to solve the totality of anthropogenic problems is superseded by the volume of the (growing) totality of anthropogenic problems. (Part II)

The definition’s strength is that it meets the intuition, that there is a race between the problem elements of the system (total biosphere) and the solution elements of the system (total biosphere). There are some challenges of the concept – find more about it in the appendix beneath.

The two avalanches: Can the "solution system" catch the expanding "problem system"?

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Scenarios and insights: Will we have the innovation avalanche we need to survive our own technology?

I will unfold the main scenarios in some future post. For the moment the most important insight is, that there is a high uncertainty concerning the “innovation race of mankind”. Some more insights in no special order:

1. Industrialization 1.0: With the global spreading of technology and industrial production the consumtion of natural ressources is growing and environmental pollution is increasing – as everyone knows.
2. Industrialization 2.0: We find the secondary technologies to avoid unwanted effects nearly everywhere on the globe: filter technologies to avoid emissions, sewage plants to keep the water clean, recycling infrastructure etc.
3. Only deeds count: The extent of neutralization clearly is dependent on the technology, innovation generation, effectiveness and especially the actual application of the technology.

The two avalanches: Problem system and solution system interacting

1. Dynamic picture: There is a race of the two avalanches – and this is a more complex picture than thinking about the “limits of growth”. “Limit thinking” is right to point to the fundamental fact, that the planet’s material ressources are … limited.
2. Do not underscore the innovation factor: We are part of a naturally limited system, right. But technological innovations of all kind can shift the limits dramatically. E.g. when re-cycling valuable ressources, what is done routinely, the same atoms can be used again and again. It is a different question, whether this is done to an adequate extent and whether it is possible in a energy- and cost-efficient way.
3. Disruptive innovations are needed: With China, India, Russia and Brazil (the socalled BRIC nations) increasing their metabolism with nature we find that the Industrialization 2.0 standard efforts are not capable to compensate for the “problem input” to the biosphere. The resistance to some (rather weak) CO2 treaty is a good indicator of the mismatch. Probably we need disruptive innovations to reach the goals. We then might come back to some sustainable metatboilism with our biosphere – if it is possible anyway.

The message: Think innovativeness beyond technological innovation!

If you realize the trouble we are in, you might be a bit discouraged. Everyday some 130 species are extinct for ever – this is 1.000 times more than the natural extinction rate, i.e. 100.000%. Every acre of land which is deforested, will cost us so much more to re-forest … and so on.

But there is reason for hope: The creativity of the human being and the human culture is incredibly huge! Today we see the investments of hundreds of billions in the technological sector of innovation. We have to seriously add other sectors of innovation:

Viable path: How to respond to the urgent global challenges? We have to combine technologocical ingeniousity with social, political and economical innovations.

• Social innovation: New ways of working, sustainable lifestyle, happiness driven “social layout”
• Political innovation: New ways of opinion-forming, decision making, politcal representation
• Economical innovation: New sustainable business models, new ways to create value chains

If you look around you will find a lot of signals and drivers of change.

• Social innovation examples: Crowdsourcing, Coworking places, “transition towns” …
• Political innovation examples: netbased debate, Liquid Democracy platform, civil society, (weak signal of “new civil dissent”: “Stuttgart21 protests” in Germany) …
• Economical innovation examples: (macro)wikinomics, microfinance and microwork platforms …

Together with convergent innovative technological solutions we might be witness of the birth of some new socio-economical “blueprint” leading to global sustainable society – before selfmade “eco-singularity” is winning against ourself.

Update! 2010-11-02 – Thank you very much Ralf!

There are more and more people, who  understand the core problem. Yesterday somehow marginalized by the “leaders”, today they are literaly entering the stage: E.g. Leaders listening to thoughtleader Otto Scharmer at World Economic Forum, China 2010

Update: Great, here is the embeddable version of the video (skip to the 8th minute for Scharmer):

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Update! 2010-11-04 – Wolff Horbach (Business Blog innovativ.in) has done an interwiew

Wolff Horbach (Business Blog innovativ.in) asked me about my analyses and theses, thanks a lot!

• Zukunftsforscher Schroll: Ohne Innovations-Lawine ist der Planet verloren

Wolff Horbach helps people and enterprises to understand the dynamics of … happiness, Everyone wants it, nobody really knows and understands it. Isn’t it a goal and a ressource at the same time? He has writen a book too (German), find more about it here: Faktor G - Glückliche Mitarbeiter. Glückliche Kunden. Glückliche Unternehmen.

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APPENDIX

Challenges of the eco-singularity concept (in the perspective of hard science)

The definition’s weakness partly lies in the “limits of measurement”: How to measure “problem volumes” and “solution capacity”? There is a overwhelming complexity in both parameters. We have intuitions that a problem A (having cancer) is “bigger” than a problem B (having cought a cold), and that a solution A (teaching safe driving) has more capacity than a solution B (teaching to avoid traffic controls). This means that some “soft” metrics should be possible. There is a first list of complexity issues:

• (a) the vast amount of options,
• (b) causal interdependency of choices (combining two optima sometimes leads to a suboptimal global solution),
• (c) value dependency (the moral value coordinates determine the rating and ranking of problems and solutions)
• (d) self-referentiality and non-linearities

There might be some more intricacies, but we can set all this aside for the moment since the concept at first is useful to understand the “big picture” of global technological history. It will be useful as a kind of world view or cognitive tool even if  the details of the defining features have to be worked out.

*

Minor updates

• 2010-11-01 Some minor changes in spelling, hyperlinking some words. adding second graphics
• 2010-11-04 linking the three posts

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Three posts about ecological singularity and the avalanche of change

The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) - … Definition (II) - … Solutions (III)

• US, China, Europe have ambitious green tech and clean tech goals. But: Eyeing for the emerging green markets will not be enough

Green outlook of China, US, Europe (slide: Kux, Siemens)

• Speakers at econsense meeting made an appeal to bring the sustainability issue into the DNA of the company – I totally agree; as an analyst I know the difference of appeal, role, institutionalization and generalized corporate behavior; today we find a lot of big companies at awareness level 2 or 3 – that means they have established some “sustainability modules” as I would call it; there is a sustainability policy and a reporting routine, i.e. some new roles (= level 2) and institutionalization (= level 3)
• Probably we need to do a lot more! We need to rebuild the whole DNA of the company and the economy. Why? Humankind is riding spaceship earth totally over capacity – day by day. Did you know that the “ecological debt day” in 2010 was August 21? (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_Debt_Day)
• Other fact: There are about 10.000 business schools around the world (FT.com) producing the leaders of tomorrow
• I am really afraid that they somehow produce the  same type of manager, which brought us here
• FT.com: “Just 326 have signed up for the UN Principles of Responsible Management Education. Only 60 schools are members of the Academy for Business in Society and 40 are in the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative. Just 149 schools entered the last Aspen Institute’s Beyond Grey Pinstripes biennial rankings.” (Business education _ Schools ignore sustainability revolution / FT.com – October 3, 2010)

From “Business Schools” to “Planet Schools”

• Is it a waste of time to target business schools for “deep change” i.e. strategic sustainability?
• Do you really think you can set the shareholder value at first place and at the same time make decisions beyond that “particular interest” of the shareholders? E.g. even respect generations in the distant future, living when you and your company will be forgotten … I am afraid there are some rules of logic you cannot discard.
• I have a radical step in mind to foster paradigmatic change: Let us close the “Business Schools” in the long run and have a new start with “Planet Schools”, a completely new framework from the roots. This new schools will not teach strange esoteric stuff or utopian economics, but have to be committed to the realism. Guidnig question: “How to have metabolism with a finite planet?”. The core belief of business schools of today have to be unmasked as utopian thinking (“Infinite growth is possible.”). This step might ensure transformation of the mindset – what do you think?

Part I: Titanic in full speed, me, you and the Trojan horse (I)

Are you on the bridge seeing, acting, taking responsibility?

Are you in the Marconi Room sending SOS? Or are you in the squach court? A call from the sidelines with an eco-singularity point of view (http://blog.futurefacts.net/2010/10/09/eco-singularity-is-near-definition-ii/).

econsense meeting, 10th anniversary – So what is the level of awareness in Germanys industry?

Just the new green markets in mind? Or is it more? I have been attending the meeting Oct 12th and will tell you a bit more soon.

econsense.de

The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) - … Definition (II) - … Solutions (III)

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The planet issue

Part I was about getting there, the backstory of why and when I wanted to get deeper into the issue of “PSP” – planet saving politics : ) Before I start to explain that strange neologism “eco-singularity” let us have some reality check: Where are we today, about eleven months after the failed summit? A reality check is quite easy since there is a meeting in these days again.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow: Climate talks without adequate political will

In Tianjin, China, negotiators from 177 nations are meeting for U.N.-mandated climate talks . Guess we will see the same syndrome as in Kopenhagen. Even after this years extreme weather events (from Poland to Russia to Pakistan to bring some to mind – and: yes I know the difference of weather and climate!) we do not see “adequate response”. Diagnosis: The econo-techno-political system in it’s entirety just is not capable to process the (mostly unambigous) input of science into the output of necessary decisions.

We are over capacity! Will innovation stretch our limited ressources somehow? Image source: Wackernagel 2010

Connect the both time series. We are part of non-linear systems – surprising changes to the worse are probable. Image source: Munich re 2004

2020 outlook: Missing the target

Missing the target with 13.600.000.000 tons of CO2 – nearly a third:

WWF says the world needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a yearly output of 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2020 to limit the warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. Instead, nations are on track to emit up to 53.6 billion tons of CO2 per year. (Little hope for climate protection – UPI.com)

My dear reader, you can see, that my skepticism is not exaggerated, but it is evidence-based. Here some observations:

• The aggregated solution potential of international politics, national governments, transnational institutions is weak (compared with what is necessary)
• The influence of NGOs is weak (compared with what is necessary)
• The insight of the public is weak (compared with what is necessary)
• The insight and will of economical leaders is weak (compared with what is necessary)
• The global media system as an attention market quickly is bored with repeating stories (mass media and social media do not function very different in this respect)

Worse: There is a systematic blockage feeded by the globally prevailing growth paradigm, which is assumed to be axiomatic – with no plausible and convincing alternative economical framework in sight. I confess that I do not have an alternative system in the pocket, but at least I know that we desperately need some. If you do not know, that you are missing something, you will not start searching. And what is your level of awareness?

Reminding the singularity issue

Ok, we have all heard about global crisis, growth limits, the need for urgent action for quite a while. But what has this eco-singularity thing top do with it – and what is it? First remind the concept of technological singularity:

A technological singularity is a hypothetical event occurring when technological progress becomes so extremely rapid, due to positive feedback, that it makes the future after the Singularity qualitatively different and harder to predict. It has been suggested that a singularity will occur during the 21st century, … (Wikipedia)

Strange Wikipedia text since the standard topic of the singularity debate is missing here – the (i) emergence of a smarter-than-human Artificial Intelligence as (ii) a consequnece of accelerated technological progress and (iii) possible threat to mankind.

Eco-Singularity is the top issue of our time

The top issue of our time is not thinking about the day when man has created an Artificial Intelligence intellectually superior to homo sapiens sapiens – and what this imagined being will do to us, or what we should do today to stop this development.

The real question today is: Will we as a global community (and esp. the decision makers) do the right thing to secure that set of resources R*, which is necessery to solve the upcoming crisis before this set of ressources is destroyed. With R* I mean all kinds of resources, not only the natural resources and biodiversity. E.g. the knowledge and innovation system and even the moral resources are included here.

Eco-Singularity definition – first trial

Eco-Singularity is the event, when our (growing) capacity to solve the totality of anthropogenic problems is superseded by the volume of the (growing) totality of anthropogenic problems.

Sounds complicated but it is not. I am not talking about the “limits of growth” in a finite system or about the predictability of the future. For better understanding one example:

Nuclear waste: This is an anthropogenic problem since radiation cannot be neutralized. There is a set of solutions e.g. to bury the waste. This means we have a technology T1 (for energy generation) and a different technology T2 (for protecting the biosphere from the isotopes). If T2 really compensates the “anthropogenic problem” of T1 everything is alright, if it does not solve the problem you might have even increasing costs.

Mankind of today has a lot of problems which can be structured this way: There is a T1 technology with some (often huge) benefits – and there is a T2 technology to clean up or compensate for negative side-effects of T1.

Examples:

• Agriculture -> Deforestation – to reforest is very costly in comparison to protect against deforestation
• Agriculture, mining etc. -> Decreasing biodiversity – everyday specieses are lost forever
• Using pharmaceuticlas -> Polluting groundwater with hormones, antibiotics etc.
• …

What is in your mind now? There should be some innovations in the pipeline to reset the state of nature, aren’t they? Good point. You are on the track to understand eco-singularity!

Meta-problem of mankind: Losing the innovation race

If there is a general and widespread problem structure of T1-T2 type then one decisive factor is innovation, research and development, right! But there is definitely no guarantee, that the sum of all the unwanted T1 effects can be compensated in time by the development of the T2. Since we cannot measure, what is possible in the future if there is a disruptive innovation X, the eco-singularity can lie behind us (we will lose the game), and it may lie ahead – two weaks or two centuries. It has to be a hypothetical conceptual construction.

Usefulness of the Eco-Singularity concept

After all, what is this concept good for if it remains somehow hypothetical? It changes the perspective and the set of questions. And it will make us more realistic and careful about the release of ever new technologies, when we are not in control of even the old ones!

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Three posts about ecological singularity and the avalanche of change

The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) - … Definition (II) - … Solutions (III)

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Image sources

Munich re 2004: http://maps.grida.no/library/files/global_costs_of_extreme_weather_events_thumbnail.jpg

Wackernagel 2010: Four Things to Know In Times of Resource Constraints, Mathis Wackernagel, Ph.D. - CollediVal d’Elsa, 7 June 2010

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/footprint_forum_2010_power_point_presentations/

I am not a techprogressive.

But I bet on Augmented Reality to be a decisive component of the fine-granular information ubiquity environment, which is emerging in this decade 2010-2020.

The reality is becoming a web

The web has become a reality in the last 20 years – and now we witness that the reality is becoming a web. It is transforming into a weblike matrix of “activated space”. The space of today may be called “mute space” and “blind space” in the future – if it is not

enriched with information, not “talking”, not “hearing”, not reacting to the people around. The analyst predicts this. (My personal opinion is that we still should strive for silence and contemplation in the future.) See the merging of AR principle and powerful recognition technology in the video – to allow/limit this kind of (intrusive?) social transparency is a political issue in this decade.

AR to counterbalance the technological intelligence around us (Subjectoid)

Remind the lesson of evolution biology: A population is shaped by the environment, but at the same time it is shaping the environment. With Augmented Reality on the one end and Sensor Web on the other we envision the Mixed Reality and Ambient Spaces reacting

to us in a higher extent than all the time before, when we only did react to present surroundings but it just did not react to us (exception: human beings and animals around us).

Other way round: The environment is becoming more subject-like, it is becoming an “subjectoid” (google this word, surprise: “subjectoid” seems to be  not being used by some poststructuralist philosopher). Since AR by defintion is augmenting the reality perception this move to AR looks like a defensive strategy to compensate mens relative loss of power, when his technological creations (embedded and mobile and ambient computers) are acquiring more and more “cognitive powers”. So far the cultural-historical perspective.

Elementary operation in Augmented Reality: The &

The elementary operation of Augmented Reality tech is plus. Some synthetic data element is dynamically overlayed to the stream of perception. E.g. you have a stream of photons received in your smartphone’s cam and transformed to a display. Then some other data is fed in as an overlay (text, graphics, 3d rendered object). See all the demos on youtube … A future proof definition of AR should not exclude any kind of sensory  channel. Most of todays AR is focussed on the visual system, but the combination with the auditive channel will allow for more information density and “information intelligence” in the future.

Simple proposal for a practical AR symbolism

You have been acquainted with the hashtag in the twitterverse to aggregate thematic tweets. And maybe you like the idea that the @twittername is such an easy way to identify someone, it is the twitter id, unequivocal. I do not know whether anyone ever did propose this (read above: I am not a techie, developer), but the idea is quite easy: AR layers can be “released” in the same convenient and simple way as one claims a twitter id, just using the &-symbol as a prefix – and a central registration.

Examples

&gov.us: delivering a certified layer for administrative activities, e.g. in case of catastrophe (take your smartphone and to leave a dangerous area follow the red arrows blended in)

&nike.com: brand layer with temporary offerings, hints, AR games etc.

&diabetes: group layer locating not only drugstores and medical practices, but ar-registered physicians in the physical surroundings, which could help in an emergency

&tennis: interest layer locating not only tennis courts or shops for equipment, but ar-registered tennis players (not quite sure how useful this is)

&wschroll: my personal layer for personal memories, loved places, biography, clipboards/shoplists  at places, audio layers for certain places, where I have “anchored” specific soundscapes

To be honest: The above examples are not so specific for AR, one can have this convention for maps too. But I really like the idea to create “augmented worlds”, not only maps, and isn’t it nice to have a systematic namespace for this?

Augmented Business

Since the elementary operation of Augmented Reality tech is plus, any business model or service creation has to start with understanding this core. You will read something about it in the future. Maybe we will discuss the issue at the

ARBcon.europe – 1st European AR Business Conference – Berlin

The times are changing – and the semantics of our expressions too.

When I brought the concept of the “Augmented Citizen” into being it was rather narrow, thanks to the context of Government 2.0 Camp in August 2009 (see slideshare.net). Then in December I realized the full potential and future usage patterns of (Social) Mobile Augmented Reality at the AR meeting in Rotterdam (NL). In the keynote I even encouraged the folks to think beyond the interaction concepts and sensory channels of today, when thinking about augmentation. E.g. we can have augmentation and overlays of other perceptive fields than the visual – and with al kinds of immersion in a social-networked surroundings (for Rotterdam AR meeting see blogpost: Augmented Citizen – next: augmented reality ecosystem).

Later mobile business visionary and social technology architect Dan Romescu and I had some fruitful dialogues concerning the evolution scnarios of mobile AR. Actually he seriously caught fire and went to Mobile World Congress as an “Augmented Citizen Advocate”, blogging at http://www.augmentedcitizen.org So I am proud to present our slides from the Mobile AR Summit at MWC.

Are you a skeptic and have read up to here? Then remind that Juniper talks about a market size  of  USD 732 million for 2014. Or just think about slide 8:

Q: Isn‘t AR just a new mode how to display information?

A: Yes, but this in fact means to change the
mode of interaction with the world,
your physical and social reality.

Just as an addon to the previous post talking about mysterious “augmented participation” as a possible growth field here is the colorful Gary Hayes list:

16 Top Augmented Reality Business Models | PERSONALIZE MEDIA

With some well known examples as seen on youtube (2009!). The collection and systematic has not been evaluated by me, just want to kick it in here as a starter for the AR skeptics.

Auguverse?

Google “auguverse” and you will find virtually nothing – however we will call it, the “mixed / augmented reality universe” might be a 1.000 times bigger in 2020 as a information space, than the web of today (measured in counted information objects, not the exabyte volume). Hey, I am a futurist and it is Friday, I can talk like this – with IPv6, sensor web, social ubiquity and internet of things in mind.

Straigt to flickr image in a readable form.

Time of transition, yes

Confession: I personally got rather tired of social media and the social network issue, often I am even skeptic about the longterm effects of social hyperconnectivity. Construcitve turn: Thinking about the future of balanced connectivity and tools for that. Actually I am thinking like so much folks about the transition from Web 2.0 to the next paradigm and how this will look like (web squared, third wave, pragmatic web, synaptic web, just “Web 3,0″?)

iPad pre-configures usage patterns, yes

Mr. Schirrmacher commented on the nice new shiny i-thing in town, the iPad (Die Politik des iPad, faz.net). Steve Jobs actually is a top business genius, may be the top in consumer IT today. Schirrmacher is right to think about the “politics of the iPad”. Hardware, end devices and their layout shape our doings and action patterns, channel our needs and wishes. But Schirrmacher is not quite right, when he thinks that the web of the future will not be so participative – after the iPad.

Participation will change, grow – Augmented Reality participation tools ahead

With mobile end devices allowing to contribute reviews, ratings (thumbs up/down) in a monent, participation will change in content, effort and intention. In the nearest future every smart phone has augmented reality apps as a standard. This will enable us to post annotations just in the physical space around us, attached to buildings, things, shops, even persons with some face recognition. Finally, new participation tools are spreading, pushing transparency  – with huge impact to society and our lifestyle, shifting values (for more see Augmented Citizen post).

Participation today – facts and figures

Until we see this new media universe unfold, I just recommend to click to personalizemedia.com/the-count to see the impressive numbers (screenshot). Do not get me wrong here, I definitely do not consider me an “evangelist” of the social web, it is creating so much low quality content, noise and split attention – like mass media too, I just want to show, that, as a matter of fact, the participatory web is still quite alive.

[Quote from personalizemedia.com/the-count:]

The social web has exploded in the last year and below are some of the key data points that the ‘Gary’s Social Media Count’ is based on (many will be updated!).

• 20 hours of video uploaded every minute onto YouTube (source YouTube blog Aug 09)
• Facebook 600k new members per day, and photos, videos per month, 700mill & 4 mill respectively (source Inside Facebook Feb 09)
• Twitter 18 million new users per year & 4 million tweets sent daily (source TechCrunch Apr 09)
• iPolicy UK – SMS messaging has a bright future (Aug 09)
• 900 000 blogs posts put up every day (source Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2008)
• YouTube daily, 96 million videos watched, $1mill bandwidth costs (source Comscore Jul 06 !)
• UPDATE: YouTube 1Billion watched per day SMH (2009)- counter updated!
• Second Life 250k virtual goods made daily, text messages 1250 per second (source Linden Lab release Sep 09)
• Money – $5.5 billion on virtual goods (casual & game worlds) even Facebooks gifts make $70 million annually (source Viximo Aug 09)
• Flickr has 73 million visitors a month who upload 700 million photos (source Yahoo Mar 09)
• Mobile social network subscribers – 92.5 million at the end of 2008, by end of 2013 rising to between 641.6-873.1 million or 132 mill annually (source Informa PDF)
• SMS – Over 2.3 trillion messages will be sent across major markets worldwide in 2008 (source Everysingleoneofus sms statistics)

Update:

The promising triangle: Citizen – open data – mobile access

There is a virulent aspect of participatory acitivities, I missed to mention adequately: The “open data” movement around the world – think of all the maps and apps, which emerged around the data.gov initiative, e.g. opning up a huge administration like in NYC Data Mine.

Update 2010-08-12: Modified the title, which might have sounded a bit aggressive, what is not my intention (“Web 2.0 future? Check out “augmented participation”, Mr. Schirrmacher”)