Web 2.0 Debate – It’s On!

The Wall Street Journal takes a on the debate of web 2.0.  Some of the highlights.

 Yes, the people have finally spoken. And spoken. And spoken.  Now they won’t shut up. The problem is that YOU! have forgotten how to listen, how to read, how to watch.

Thanks for calling us idiots.  Of course no one would be reading your article if it weren’t for blogs.

The other guy says this:

We also agree that the Web is a problem. The problem endemic to the Web even before anyone gave the Web version numbers — and the problem that leads to your issue with “cockroaches” — is that because anyone can contribute and because there are no centralized gatekeepers, there’s too much stuff and too many voices, most of which any one person has no interest in. But, the Web is also the continuing struggle to deal with that problem. From the most basic tools of the early Internet, starting with UseNet discussion threads, through Wikipedia, and sites that enable users to tag online resources, the Web invents ways to pull together ideas and information, finding the connections and relationships that keep the “miscellaneous” from staying that way.

On one hand, they argue that people are forgetting how to read and write but then they also complain that there is too much information out there basically put out by people who don’t know what they are talking about or aren’t entitled to talk about it in an open forum.

I’ve never understood this attitude of too much information.  The more ideas out there the better.  A lot of times a really, really bad idea leads to something very useful.  It just triggers creative thought. 

Mr. Keen is quite a guy:

You are right that people have always chattered endlessly about the silliest things. But the self-publishing Internet is the greatest of great seduction. Web 2.0 tells us that we all have something interesting to say and that we should broadcast it to the world. As I argue in my book, Web 2.0 transforms us into monkeys. 🙂 That’s the new abundancy, the long tail, if you like. Infinite primates with infinite messages on infinite channels. The only good news is that broadband is still pathetically slow. But what happens when fiber-to-the-home becomes a reality for all of us? What happens with the monkeys have the technology of the Gods at their paw tips? Media will be transformed into ubiquitous chatter — into an audio-video version of Twitter.

This debate isn’t bad but after a bit they both start to sound like Dennis Miller clones, trying to come up with references that make sound smart…so as to change your focus from what they are saying to how they are saying it. 

I think this debate is Web 2.0