[rohrpost] Against Web 2.0 [From: Trebor_Scholz]

Fre Jun 2 14:56:22 CEST 2006

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [iDC] Against Web 2.0
From:    "Trebor Scholz" <trebor at thing.net>
Date:    Fri, May 26, 2006 10:52 pm
To:      "IDC list" <idc at bbs.thing.net>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

David Weinberger, blogging philosopher and author of ³Small Pieces Loosely
Joined² said in a recent interview:

³some of the talk about Web 2.0 makes me want to point back to Clue Train
Manifesto. The only part of the Web 2.0 stuff that I have a
reaction to is when Web 2.0 people say- now at last the Web is for users and
users have a voice. And I want to say: NO, back from the very
beginning what drove people onto the net was not so that people can shop at
Amazon. Weblogs and all that have made it way, way easier but the Web has
always been about voice and conversation."

<http://www.whak.com/off/?202>

I agree. Online sociality is old: It goes back to the beginnings of the
Internet. You don't have to be a media historian to understand that. Online
sociality is new: It has reached a new level of participation, in some cases
even interaction. Today, sociality online is empowered by easier-to-use
tools, broader access to bandwidth and technology as well as a deeper
familiarity with the tools.

When I first came to the United States, I met Annette Michelson,
professor for cinema studies, in her New York University office. She asked
me why I decided to move to the US. A bit tongue-in-cheek, I responded that
I did not come for the American Dream. I remember it like today: her eyes
turned dark, then a moment of silence, ... then she raised her voice: "Don't
you even MENTION the American Dream
to me. It does not exist."

Russell Shaw's in his recent Zdnet article "Web 2.0? It does not exist" does
not argue that Web 2.0 does not exist just like Michelson surely did not
doubt that there are people who follow the American Dream. Russell Shaw just
turns his back to the suggestion that there is a rebirth of the Web.

<http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=805>

Wikipedia states about Web 2.0 as "a social phenomenon referring to an
approach to creating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by
open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and
re-use." The encyclopedia continues by characterizing Web 2.0 as "a more
organized and categorized content, with a more developed
deep-linking web architecture." They also refer to a "shift in economic
value of the web, potentially equaling that of the dot com boom of the late
1990s." The term Web 2.0 is yet another fraudulent bubble designed to trick
investors with pretended newness. It's just like McDonald's re-stacking
their greasy beef layers to sell an entirely new product every 6 month. I'm
not at all suggesting, however, that the phenomenon behind the term
Web 2.0is corrupt.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0>

The term is attributed to corporate "futureneer" Tim O'Reilly who
convened a Web 2.0 Conference in 2005. (White male faces dominated this
conference just like other O¹Reilly events.) The Wikipedia DEF for the term
Web 2.0 links it to what some people see as a second phase of development of
the World Wide Web.

<http://www.whak.com/off/?203>
<http://www.web2con.com/>

Other terms kicking around include groupware and the term social
software that was mainly used in the early 1990s. It stood for people
connecting or collaborating through networked communication
technologies.

Howard Rheingold referred to sociable web media as
³cooperation-enhancing technologies.² Cooperation, in contrast, is a less
intensive form of working together in which participants account for gain or
loss individually. Contributors have individual goals. While collaboration
is a risky, intensive form of working together with a common goal. The gain
or loss is shared among all. The term sociable web media is surrounded by
this discourse. Edward Barrett, lecturer in the MIT Writing Program
introduced the term "sociomedia" in the book of the same title. Judith
Donath wrote on Sociable Media for The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer
Interaction.

<http://smg.media.mit.edu/>
<http://www.whak.com/off/?204>
<http://smg.media.mit.edu/papers/Donath/SociableMedia.encyclopedia.pdf>

The term "sociable media" is used by the MIT Sociable Media Group, for
example. They define ³sociable media² as engagement with issues of identity
and society in a networked society. "Sociable," for me, means approachable.
Webster defines "sociable" as " a) being inclined to seek or enjoy
companionship and b) marked by or conducive to friendliness or pleasant
social relations." A sociable online environment is open to contributions.
But that does not mean that it is social, that is has a community of
participants. Opening a room does not mean that people will come to party.
"Sociable" alludes to the possibility of sociality. I use the term sociable
web media.

Next time you hear Web 2.0 feel the sour aftertaste.

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [iDC] Against Web 2.0
From:    trebor at thing.net
Date:    Wed, May 31, 2006 8:50 pm
To:      "IDC list" <idc at bbs.thing.net>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is a remarkably predictable, slightly draining, ever-repeating cycle.
Once an argument is made that a networked technology has positive social
effects or that there are really existing economies emerging from it or that
sociable media can be used against the intentions of their inventors --
there are always people stepping to the front who take that argument, push
it to the absolute extreme ("computers will save the world") and then stop
there ("utopian notions of community," "sociable media as fad.")

It's labor-intensive to keep up, some give up on emergent media. (It takes
me about two hours a day.) Just for a moment picture that people who argue
for sociable web media have critical faculties. Somebody who finds blogs or
RSS or podcasts empowering, may well be aware of the participatory
panopticon and clearly see the corporatization of open-everything. Soft
coercion through networked, casualized labor and all that hell of the
networked lifestyle may actually be on her mind. Just imagine that.

She agrees that "mass communications systems largely serve the interests of
power." She reads media history and does not buy into into the
overdetermined liberation-talk about blogs. But she may have also read the
"Handbook for Bloggers and Cyberdissidents" and thus know what blogs can do
to real dictatorial regimes. She read about the SMS Sydney Riots last
December, the role of texting in the Phillipines, East Timor, China, and at
the Republican convention in NYC.

<http://www.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/handbook_bloggers_cyberdissidents-GB.pdf> <
http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0603/02-goggin.php>
<http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,64536,00.html>
<http://www.whak.com/off/?210>
<http://www.whak.com/off/?211>
<http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-01/30/content_516405.htm>

To argue, ignoring all this, that "computers are not the answer to the
world's social problems" is, well, troublesome because they are *an* answer
to *some* social predicaments. The Internet is not the savior that comes
along on a white horse swinging the golden sword of salvation. The World
Wide Web is not the cure to the planet's diseases. But it may help connect
researchers to find a remedy. The Internet is not the cash cow for the
populace but it does create alternative sharing economies. (It took Benkler
ten years to write The Wealth of Networks, I'll not make the case here in
passing). How about a balance between enthusiasm and critical distance? Just
imagine that.

Trebor

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4492150.stm>
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/4696668.stm>
<http://www.streamtime.org/>
<http://www.daoudkuttab.com/>
<http://indyblogs.protest.net/>

<http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_25/b3938601.htm>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_informatics>
<http://www.unmediated.org/archives/resources/>
<http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_10/tatum/>

<http://www.mediacenterblog.org/events/06/wemedialondon/home/>
<http://conference.oc-tech.org/>
<http://www.netaction.org/training/index.html>
<http://www.whak.com/off/?209>