The principles of produsage can and have been applied to a variety of vastly different domains, within the internet and Web 2.0, which all deal with information -in one of its various forms- as their only common characteristic. Forms of information include:

  • information as code,
  • information as news, 
  • information as knowledge,
  • information as metadata,
  • information as creative work,
  • information as the glue that binds together our communities and societies  and enables democracy to function

According to Jenkins “produsage and its technologies advance processes of convergence, and are involved in a range of crucial conflicts over the shape and balance of our future technological, industrial, economic, cultural and social environments…. These conflicts determine the character of our emerging human knowledge space itself.”

Those who can provide motivating and inspirational topics, divide these up into specific tasks, inspire a wide range of contributors to take on developing solutions, which can then be assembled and combined into an active and dynamic project and community, will determine the success of produsage itself. The future of cyberspace is unclear but it is evident that produsage will play a major role in its evolution. The development of artefacts from products is one such example of where it is heading.

Through the addition of an informational layer to prodused product reviews, recommendations and other associated knowledge to existing products and we can now identify such processes in a growing range of what can be described as social communities operating in much the same way as the communities of knowledge sharing but what is shared is not how-to information but information on getting the most out of a product. These shopping communities such as Stylehive and OSOYOU are engaged in the produsage of knowledge at the same time as advertising and marketing the products discussed. Applications which have the ability to turn products into artefacts either: make buyers more aware about their product in an informational sense where users leave reviews and recommendations (which acts as a positive form of advertising as it is more believable coming from a fellow user) or the resale potential of unwanted or no longer needed products.

Market Publique is the Ebay equivalent for the fashion world and based in America the site allows users to auction off their unwanted fashion. These types of sites have the potential for physical possessions to become more fluid and pieces of clothing or other fashion essentials turn into temporary artefacts of a continual process of material sharing. Being temporary owners has become a more efficient way to live. Although we are not producing goods per se the continuous sharing of (informationally enhanced) goods across a community of participants in our auction culture displays strong produsage characteristics.

Another option for making artefacts out of products is the possibility to make physical items freely available through open source licensing. Licensed items would be co owned and linked to a digital address to allow for tracking. Possession would be shared, distributed, diffused across a larger number of participants. Although items on these websites are owned by the company Dressed Up and Wish to Wear provide a designer clothing hire service to Australian women. They purchase new season items then lease the dress, belt or bag out on a weekly basis. Women are not locked into buying a $2000 for one night/season. With these sites they have the ability to pay $50 to have that same dress for a week then return it so someone else can have it the next week.

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