Web 2.0

It seems to me that anonymity and the emotional detachment of typed communication lead to a decline in basic civilised behaviour. The dark side of the web is evident, such as two recent examples I have come across.

Back in February I said (in response to that truly stupid book Cult of the Amateur) "the average blog will have about four readers". It is coming true.

Wired magazine seems to think the internet heralds a new socialism. This silliness stems from the same hypocricy and self-delusion that has middle class kids sitting in a house someone else built wearing clothes someone else cast off and lusting after DVDs and cell phones, while pretending to plot the downfall of Western capitalism. The internet is perhaps the greatest creation of capitalism. It is only through the surpluses generated by its money engine and the freedom generated by its armies that twaddle such as this even gets written and read.

I just finished writing my non-review of The Cult of the Amateur when I found that Carr's at it too. Nicholas Carr of course. Apparently he too believes blogging is going to lead to the demise of professional journalism. What is it with otherwise intelligent people that they have to extrapolate a trend linearly to an apocalyptic conclusion? It shows a complete failure to grasp even the basics of systems theory.

This post has been podcast.
Months ago I set out to read Cult of the Amateur, by Andrew Keen, Doubleday 2007. I want to review this book but I can't because it makes me so angry I can't finish it. I fling it across the room and leave it for weeks before I try again. So far I've made to page 19. I can't recall when I last read such an irrationally emotive, ill-informed, unbalanced diatribe. I even include here my own writings. What makes it worse is that my own opinions are not that far from the author's - I should be a cheerleader. But he just talks crap.

Recently we looked at the Folly of the Crowd: how in all but the largest of online communities the supposed consensus community content is actually created by a fanatical few. This is made worse by the online world's distaste of people making a living.

What's the big deal with Twitter? As far as I can see it is a mechanism to allow large quantities of low value noise into your life while at the same time being a device for ego stroking. No I'm not interested in your every idle non-thought, and I don't need to feed my ego hourly. And it doesn't work very well.

In a previous post we looked at excitement - hype even - about the potential for Web 2.0, in particular what is known as the Wisdom of the Crowd. But majority does not equal truth. Voting is good for social decision making but not for advancing knowledge. It isn’t even a majority anyway that fills the forums and blogs and wikis. It is the voice of a fanatical few. And the Crowd equates fame with wisdom. The Crowd also fails to discriminate between sources of information.

There is much excitement about the potential for Web 2.0, in particular what is known as the Wisdom of the Crowd. Wikipedia becomes the repository of all knowledge, Google search statistics are the zeitgeist of the times and MySpace is the face of the world. Page rank is a measure of authority. Corporations appeal to the public for solutions to problems. The ivory tower is replaced by the democracy of the commons; the proclamations of the cathedral displaced by the hubbub of the bazaar. Not so fast.