Emperor’s new clothes, arab springs and #notw vs the people and open stuff

Way to go Egypt! Thanks to cactusbones https://www.flickr.com/photos/cactusbones/

So what’s that title about? A summer season post, stretching metaphors and rambling a bit.

It occurs to me that there have been some quantum shifts in the international and national political spheres this year. The common theme is that there came a point when popular orthodoxy and acceptance of the status quo was overturned by a relatively small event with unforeseen consequences.

In the week when the Murdoch dynasty relinquished at least a bit of its stranglehold on British media and politics, one can but wonder whether there is a parallel in the geo world.

So what would be the News of the World moment that might tip the scales in the geo world? Are the dominant players in our industry whether in software or data comparable to the characters of my title and about to be toppled by a combination of the crowd, open data and open source?  Or has it already happened?