The BBC's iCan is in public pre-beta, a social software project to foster social capital and democratic participation. I posted on M2M about the project back in May. (Just a little before that we were having the same power-law inspired discussion of weblog modalities we are today). Matt Jones speaks of the project's mission: Tom Coates recounts what's being achieved with iCan, how it fits in the power-law discussion and suggests it provides lessons for blogspace: Tom is right that there is an opportunity to evolve blogspace to support aspired activities. One definition of social capital, particularly suitable for iCan, is the ability for a group to take coordinated action. Taking action is very different from pure meme flow. One the problems of viewing blogspace as a power law is it assumes that all links are created equal. When disaggregated you discover that links hold all kinds of meanings. Just as there are different kinds of Friendships behind "Friends" in social networking services. Recall that when you ratched up the requirements for connections, connections diminish. What's interesting about some of the social networking services is how they specialize for different kinds of connections. Some use connections for simply making the connections transparent, some for passing information, some for invoking activities, some for coordinated action. In blogspace, some great tools have arisen that accelerate emergence. Using link count over time we gain visibility into the power-law of the day's pop, newcomers, breaking news, etc. Increasingly these will be shaped by reputation. But still, this is all based upon all links being equal. What might be missing is an overlay network in blogspace for activism interests. So what would be required to facilitate the easy group forming that Kevin Marks initiated in iCan for MP3 Downloads from the BBC within blogspace? Blogs are simple tools that yield complex use. All we have to do is look at how they are stretched in use beyond the intent of original designers at the skinny part of the tail. Look how people group themselves in the more community-oriented LiveJournal, look how people coordinate flash mobs of friends, just keep looking at the important part beyond punditry.