I think Socialism is the wrong term for it…

In most people it provokes such a negative response that they won’t get the point Kevin is making.

I think a more correct framework to analyze this phenomena is the free framework that Chris Anderson talks about in his article: “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business”.

Businesses are providing free, or collaborating to make money, not provide a social good. Likewise I would suggest most people blog to make money from ad words, even if this is not their primary motive.
I think that where people or communities are providing information or websites of value businesses buy those and use them to make money. This is how Google built a business model. They then further that model by giving away free software like android to control the customer interaction. Open source software such as linux still has a long way to go to take on Microsoft and Windows because it’s not very usable for your average mum and dad. Furthermore there is no incentive for the users of linux to develop a package that could be sold to new computer buyers. If linux did start becoming popular then what would stop a corporate cashing in on it?

This doesn’t sound like socialism to me, just a new way of undertaking good old fashioned capitalism.

Chris