The Pond, an Octopz blog on communication, collaboration and coworking online.

Earlier this month, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales spoke to AFP (Agence France-Presse) about the future of online collaboration over the internet. Wales thinks that we’re just at the beginning of online collaborative efforts and singled out video as a medium that has yet to be transformed by the dynamics of online collaboration and Web 2.0.

If you look at almost everything on YouTube, it’s individuals doing videos, either funny cat videos, or drunk girl videos seem to be quite popular there. What we haven’t seen yet in video is large-scale collaborative projects.

Wales offered up the example of a 90-minute video of people from all around the world being interviewed about Iraq being possible through online collaboration. And while acknowledging that the audience for such a video might be limited, Wales suggested that getting 100,000 people thinking about collaborative video production online could transform the way we make videos in the future, especially documentaries and factual programming.

The full interview with AFP is here

In this TED video, New York Times technology columnist David Pogue uses humor and song to take aim at technological complexity in software and highlights some products that get simplicity right.

More proof that collaboration is becoming a much higher priority for organizations: CNBC and BT (British Telecom) have teamed up to produce Collaboration Now, a five part TV show on collaboration in business.

Hosted by CNBC’s Donnie Deutsch, the show features a series of interviews with guests from big business the sciences, arts and academia. The first episode, entitled “Collaborate to Compete” aired on October 12 on CNBC and can also been seen in full on the show’s website.