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Seeking common factors in the Web 2.0 bubble

Or, why we're not all doomed, after all

That's the problem, isn't it? Lessig's comment is particularly nasty because he disguises it as gentle humour, but he's spot on. Keen's book is not the output of a trained, experienced journalist:

"Keen’s obvious point is to show those with a blind faith in the traditional system that it can be just as bad as the worst of the Internet. Indeed, one might say even worse, since the Internet doesn’t primp itself with the pretense that its words are promised to be true."

Ouch. And after a final dig:

"So lighten up on poor Mr. Keen, folks. He is an ally. His work will help us all understand the limits in accuracy, taste, judgment, and understanding shot through all of our systems of knowledge. The lesson he teaches is one we should all learn — to read and think critically, whether reading the product of the “monkeys” (as Keen likens contributors to the Internet to be) or books published by presses such as Doubleday,"

...Lessig goes on to list - meticulously - some of the simple errors of copy-and-paste which Keen has committed.

I'd suggest spending the thirteen odd quid that Doubleday will charge you for this book, because - in between all these typical "amateur" errors, I think Keen has a point.

He told me: "Throughout this book, I've been replying to Chris Anderson's Long Tail. I don't mind if people see me as hypocritical or even, if they think I'm not well informed. I didn't write this book for people in Silicon Valley. I'm trying to bring things together in a way that ordinary people will understand - real people. And I think the Web 2.0 thing is being described the way it isn't."

Facts: the Internet is changing the laws of society, and one of those laws is the law on copyright.

I sympathise with Keen on this. In the days before the Internet, my writing was strictly controlled by copyright, and PC Magazine paid me a salary which reflected the Editor's determination to ensure that the only way you could read my stuff was by buying PC Mag.

These days, I struggle to earn a fifth of what Ziff-Davis paid me. OK, they paid me a lot! - I think I was easily the best-paid tech journo in the UK in those days, but even so, the reality is that copyright law has melted the way the icebergs of Greenland are melting. The only thing keeping traditional meeja afloat is inertia.

But (I asked Keen) isn't this a bit like a forest, in which a huge fire has raged? - yes, much that was of value is destroyed; and in its place, there's an amorphous two-foot growth of shrubbery. But (I argued) that doesn't mean that it will still be an unimpressive two-foot high shrubbery in 50 years; by then, some of the green shoots will turn out to be 100-foot cedars, redwoods, pines. And others will be lost in their shade.

Yes, he said, that's possible. "I hope it will happen, but I don't feel it will."

In other words, the actual value of well-researched, expert writing; of trained, experienced musicianship, or of informed, science-based experimental papers, is lost for ever?

I don't think so.

I think that the problem facing traditional meeja - TV, newspapers, radio - is that they became complacent about all the things they did wrong. They - no, we - controlled access to sources. A well-informed, thoughtful individual who didn't know my phone number, or whose opinions I disagreed with, simply didn't make it into my columns, in those days.

These days I may regard people like Alasdair Phillips as mis-informed, or misguided... but he has his own platform, and if what he says about WiFi and radio "radiation dangers" resonates with people, he'll get exposure.

OK, so it's not that clear-cut - I've always tried to give the "oxygen of publicity" to my opponents, on the grounds that they would expose their ignorance better and faster if fresh air circulated amongst their ideas, than if they could wear a cloak labelled "martyr" and I'm sure I wasn't the only trained journalist to work that way. But things have changed, and yes: there's pitifully little money in writing what I did 10 years ago.

But in another ten years? I suspect that the power of Google to harvest cash from advertising is a trivial fraction of what it will eventually become.

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