Marc came to the class today, talked about AURA:

“The biggest success stories on the web are all the product of large scale collective action. Systems like eBay, Amazon, Wikipedia, file sharing networks, and Usenet are all created by a large population of loosely coordinated individuals.

These systems highlight the capacity of information technology, networking, and mobile devices to significantly alter the nature of collective action, common goods, and individual rewards.

……The related AURA project is an effort to link online conversations to the objects and locations to which many are related. Using AURA today, users can scan the barcodes on everyday objects in the home, office, or store and gain access to related information and services such as competitive pricing and product reviews. Other kinds of tags, such as tags placed on art or equipment asset tags, can be easily linked to related data through Web sites or Web service interfaces.”