[iDC] Against Web 2.0

[Franz Nahrada]

Agree. But.

I think there is more than a simple opposition when it comes to the
question how
do communities and commercial interests (i.e. free content and businesses)
relate to each other.

I have given a speech in Rome on that subject and it can be found here:

http://www.globalvillages.info/wiki.cgi?GlobalVillages/FranzNahrada/Workspace/RomeSpeech

Just remember, a few years ago content producers rallied around the
battlecry "bill it or kill it".

Now, the support of social content and peoples creativity is a buzzword
even in the content idustries.

Commercialisation has brought more people into the web than any other way;
now the exciting possibility is that companies see that they are much
better of in supporting these peoples endavours than selling content to
them. Communities and all those who want the web as a germ form of a
cooperative economy at large - modeled creatively in relation to the two
paradigms that we have allready, Wikipedia and FLOSS, better watch out and
observe the concrete nature of the support companies can give to community
building instead of denouncing businesses right away.

Why not find out what businesses can do well and focus on these things,
thus strengthening the conditions for creative communities to mature and
connect to each other?

Franz Nahrada


"Joshua Levy" <joshualev at gmail.com> writes:
>I second Trebor's criticism of the Web 2.0, and I think that the
>promoters of the term have been disingenously pushing the "social"
>nature of these applications to help de-emphasize the for-profit
>nature of their various enterprises.  But while many of us on this
>list have been aware of "sociable web media" for some time, and have
>always viewed the Internet as a tool for social connection (I remember
>my joy at experiencing the early bulletin boards before the web
>existed), the non-early adopters have only realized the social
>potential of the Internet over the last couple of years.  I still meet
>people that do not know what blogs are and view the web as nothing but
>a tool of convenience.
>
>Despite the lip service the Web 2.0 promo machine sometimes pays to
>democratic participation, and despite the fact that the ideas behind
>blogging, wikis, and social networking have existed in some form since
>before the web was invented, it will take more Flickrs and Wikipedias
>-- services that are easy to use and understand for non-techies -- to
>convince the mass audience of the web's social useability.  Email
>became the tool that it is only after it became available via http,
>using a GUI.
>
>I agree with Alex that the wide-scale emergence of user participation
>and creation across the web has a re-structuring and decentralizing
>effect.   It's interesting to think that no other mass medium has
>actually given more and more power to communities as it has grown.
>But if the dystopian, McChesney-inspired fear of corporate dominance
>is real, shouldn't we, as users and advocates for an open web, make it
>our task to promote the good trends that the Web 2.0 might bring to
>all users of the Internet?