Jon Lebkowsky (born April 20, 1949) is an American web consultant/developer, author, and activist who was the co-founder of FringeWare Review (along with Paco Nathan). FringeWare, an early attempt at

ecommerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile comm ...

and

online community An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members engage in computer-mediated communication primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, on ...

, published a popular " magalog" called FringeWare Review, and a literary zine edited by Lebkowsky called Unshaved Truths. FringeWare's email list, called the FringeWare News Network, established an international following for the organization, which also opened a store in Austin, Texas. Along with Nancy White, he co-hosts the ongoing Virtual Communities Conference, the Blog Conference, and the public Inkwell Conference at the seminal online community, the

WELL A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

. His weblog can be reached a
Weblogsky.com
He lives in

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

Internet Advocacy

Lebkowsky has a history of advocacy in support of a free and open Internet, and was a co-founder of EFF-Austin, an organization formed to be a chapter of the national

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

(EFF). EFF-Austin became a separate organization with Lebkowsky as President. Lebkowsky coined the phrase Freedom to Connect, which became the name of an annual conference organized by David Isenberg, as an alternative to the term "network neutrality."

Early history

Lebkowsky joined the WELL in 1990, and became a host or co-host of several forums on the conferencing system, including forums devoted to

Factsheet Five ''Factsheet Five'' was a periodical mostly consisting of short reviews of privately produced printed matter along with contact details of the editors and publishers. In the 1980s and early 1990s, its comprehensive reviews (thousands in each iss ...

, where he had a brief stint as book review editor, and

Mondo 2000 ''Mondo 2000'' was a glossy cyberculture magazine published in California during the 1980s and 1990s. It covered cyberpunk topics such as virtual reality and smart drugs. It was a more anarchic and subversive prototype for the later-founded ''W ...

, where he wrote several articles and formed friendships with editors

RU Sirius R. U. Sirius (born Ken Goffman in 1952) is an American writer, editor, talk show host, musician and cyberculture celebrity. He is best known as co-founder of ''Mondo 2000'' magazine and its original editor-in-chief from 1989 to 1993. Sirius has ...

and

Jude Milhon Judith Milhon (March 12, 1939 – July 19, 2003), best known by her pseudonym St. Jude, was a self-taught programmer, civil rights advocate, writer, editor, advocate for women in computing, hacker and author in the San Francisco Bay Area. Milho ...

. Through the WELL, he also became associated with

Howard Rheingold Howard Rheingold (born 1947) is an American critic, writer, and teacher, known for his specialties on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual communities. B ...

and

Whole Earth Review ''Whole Earth Review'' (''Whole Earth'' after 1997) was a magazine which was founded in January 1985 after the merger of the '' Whole Earth Software Review'' (a supplement to the '' Whole Earth Software Catalog'') and the '' CoEvolution Quarterl ...

, the

, and

boing boing ''Boing Boing'' is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice wo ...

, where he was associate editor. He had early associations with staff at

Wired Magazine ''Wired'' is a bi-monthly American magazine that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. It is published in both print and Online magazine, online editions by Condé Nast. The magazine has been in public ...

and conducted a regular, weekly series of chats called Electronic Frontiers Forum at

HotWired ''Hotwired'' (1994–1999) was the first commercial online magazine, launched on October 27, 1994. Although it was part of the print magazine Wired (magazine), ''Wired'', ''Hotwired'' carried original content. History Andrew Anker, Wired ...

. He was a subdomain editor for the Millennium

Whole Earth Catalog The ''Whole Earth Catalog'' (WEC) was an American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by author Stewart Brand several times a year between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. The magazine featured essays ...

and, in 1996, became a community host at

's Electric Minds. He has been interviewed about his pioneering work for the documentary

Traceroute In computing, traceroute and tracert are diagnostic command-line interface commands for displaying possible routes (paths) and transit delays of packets across an Internet Protocol (IP) network. The command reports the round-trip times of ...

Whole Foods Market

In 1997, he joined

Whole Foods Market Whole Foods Market, Inc. (colloquially referred to as simply Whole Foods) is an American multinational supermarket chain store, chain headquartered in Austin, Texas, which sells products free from Hydrogenated fat, hydrogenated fats and artificia ...

as its "Internet guy," to evangelize internally for the Internet and help lead their web-based ecommerce efforts, which ended in 2000 with the collapse of the so-called "Internet bubble." As Internet evangelist within the company, he advocated creation of online community at

, and was Interactive Community Director for the ecommerce site that launched in 1998. When WholeFoods.com was replaced by the ambitious Whole People, Lebkowsky moved to Colorado and helped manage technology for the new enterprise until the company ended the project following the "

dotcom bust The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...

Web development, social software, and blogs

Lebkowsky turned to web development, and formed Polycot Consulting with Jeff Kramer and Matt Sanders on September 12, 2001. He became an advocate of Open Source systems based on PHP, and later Ruby on Rails. He was an early influential

social software Social software, also known as social apps or social platform includes communications and interactive tools that are often based on the Internet. Communication tools typically handle capturing, storing and presenting communication, usually writt ...

advocate and one of the instigators of the Social Software Alliance. He was also an early blogger a
Weblogsky
With Clay Shirky, he create
You're It
a blog about tags and

folksonomy Folksonomy is a classification system in which end users apply public tags to online items, typically to make those items easier for themselves or others to find later. Over time, this can give rise to a classification system based on those tag ...

. He also blogged at, and managed technology for
Worldchanging
an influential website focused on the future of sustainability that was inspired by the

Viridian Design Movement The Viridian Design Movement was an aesthetic movement focused on concepts from bright green environmentalism. The name was chosen to refer to a shade of green that does not quite look natural, indicating that the movement was about innovative des ...

Bruce Sterling, Viridian Design, and the State of the World

He is a close friend of author

Bruce Sterling Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American science fiction author known for his novels and short fiction and editorship of the ''Mirrorshades'' anthology. In particular, he is linked to the cyberpunk subgenre. Sterling's first ...

, whom he has interviewed many times, and he created and operated the web site for Sterling's

. Lebkowsky and Sterling have a world-readable "State of the World" conversation for two weeks every January on

The WELL The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, normally shortened to The WELL or The Well, is a virtual community founded in 1985. It is one of the oldest continuously operating virtual communities. By 1993 it had 7,000 members, a staff of 12, and gross annu ...

Writing

Lebkowsky has written articles and essays, and is a contributing writer and columnist at Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century, and one of the contributors to the book Worldchanging (book). He was co-editor (with Mitch Ratcliffe) of the book
Extreme Democracy
'

Plutopia

In the early 2000s, Lebkowsky was a member of the board of the Central Texas Digital Convergence Initiative (http://dcitexas.org/). In 2005, with other members of the Digital Convergence Initiative, he worked on an installation intended for the then newly established

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

Interactive trade show, which was referred to in planning stages as Futurama. Due to a lack of time and funds, the installation did not occur as planned, however from planning conversations, Lebkowsky had the idea for a think tank that produces ''events'' instead of white papers. With futurist Derek Woodgate and consultant David Demaris, he put this idea into practice, creating an installation called the DIY House of the Future for Maker Faire Austin in 2007. The installation was successful. In a debriefing about the installation, a small group discussed the idea of doing more events focused on a future where everyone's home and experience could be self-configured. Lebkowsky tossed out the idea of "pluralist utopias," which led to adoption of the portmanteau "Plutopia." Lebkowsky and Woodgate, partnering with Maggie Duval and Bon Davis, created an event company, Plutopia Productions. Plutopia produced four large events during SXSW Interactive in Austin, in 2008 at Scholz Garten, 2009 at Palmer Events Center, and 2010-2011 at the Mexican American Cultural Center. Aligned with the 2011 event, Lebkowsky and producer Scoop Sweeney created a podcast called the Plutopia News Network. Lebkowsky left Plutopia Productions, which later closed down. However in 2018 Lebkowsky and Sweeney revived the Plutopia News Network podcast. https://plutopia.io

Other projects

He also led Austin's

Wireless Future Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...

project for the IC² Institute in 2003–2004, and was a prominent figure within the Central Texas Digital Convergence Initiative, Bootstrap Austin,

ATX Equation ATX (Advanced Technology Extended) is a motherboard and power supply configuration specification, patented by David Dent in 1995 at Intel, to improve on previous ''de facto'' standards like the AT design. It was the first major change in ...

, and other local economic development projects. He has been an advisor to the

SXSW Interactive South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

(SXSWi) conference for many years. He curated SXSWi tracks on wireless in 2004, digital convergence in 2006, and journalism in 2011. He was a cofounder and an original board member of the

Society for Participatory Medicine A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same Politics, political authority and dominant cultural expecta ...

, and currently manages the Society's social media presence. He formed an Austin-based social web consultancy, Social Web Strategies, where he was principal from 2006 to 2009. He was also instigator and principal of Plutopia Productions, a future-focused entertainment and production company. He has also been involved in Austin sustainability projects, including

Austin EcoNetwork Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufactu ...

, Austin Green Art, Austin 350, Solar Austin, and the

Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

. In 2009 he left Social Web Strategies and returned to web consulting and development. He currently writes and speaks about the Internet, media, digital culture, and social technology. He has a web development and consulting company called Polycot Associates, a spinoff from Polycot Consulting.

Writings

List of links to writings and interviews.

Posts at Worldchanging.com

"In Your Facebook"

"The Serious Play in Saving the World"

References

* * *

External links

Weblogsky Blog

Polycot Team Listing

EFF-Austin

Wireless Future

Digital Convergence Initiative

AuthorViews video interview about Extreme Democracy

1996
Podcast interview with Jon Lebkowsky
2009 {{DEFAULTSORT:Lebkowsky, Jon Living people 1949 births American bloggers American male non-fiction writers American political writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male bloggers