Perspective: Web 2.0--the folly of amateurs?

Andrew Keen doesn't fit the profile of your garden-variety bomb thrower.

But make no mistake about this erudite British-born entrepreneur: He is out to rattle Silicon Valley and the geekerati by detonating many of the comfortable myths attending the Web 2.0 era.

In a deliciously subversive new book, The Cult of the Amateur, which debuts in June, Keen recounts the many ways in which technology is remaking our culture and society. Anyone familiar with Keen's previous work from his blog will recognize the terrain here. Keen is a gloomy elitist--in the best sense of that term--wistful about a politer, more thoughtful era, but one that's destined to get trampled underneath by the amoral onslaught of the Internet.

Keen may cost himself a few dinner party invitations. Then again, he's not interested in currying favor with bloggers or would-be new media moguls. In fact, I assume he would just as soon welcome their scorn for his book as a searing indictment, a latter day "J'accuse" lamenting the harm he believes they have inflicted upon society.

The subtitle of his book states his thesis bluntly: "How the democratization of the digital world is assaulting our economy, our culture, and our values."

Keen bemoans the advent of "an endless digital forest of mediocrity" as the number of new blogs doubles each six months.

Them be fighting words, to be sure, and Keen is being purposely provocative. But he's worth reading. Keen's not writing from the uninformed point of view of a technophobe. In his previous life, he was the founder of Audiocafe.com. That said, he's not at all happy about where things are headed, bemoaning the advent of "an endless digital forest of mediocrity" as the number of new blogs doubles each six months. Here's a typical snippet:

"If we keep up this pace, there will be over five hundred million blogs by 2010, collectively corrupting and confusing popular opinion about everything from politics, to commerce, to arts and culture. Blogs have become so dizzyingly infinite, that they've undermined our sense of what is true and what is false, what is real and what is imaginary. These days, kids can't tell the difference between credible news by objective professional journalists and what they read on joeshmoe.blogspot.com."

Keen finds little to celebrate in the rising cult of the amateur. Same for the emerging age of citizen journalism, and he frets about the growing influence of short-form bloggers at the expense of the wisdom of long-form essays of scholars and experts. He worries about the wisdom-of-the-crowd phenomena represented by the likes of Wikipedia or YouTube and the impact they're having on an ADD-prone generation that embraces editor-free news sites. Technology is our friend? Don't kid yourself, is Keen's response. The crowd has often proved itself to be anything but wise. We may have strong opinions but so many of us remain uninformed.

He may be exaggerating for effect, but this is more than just the polemic of a tart-tongued writer. Technology is not intrinsically good or evil. But when communities lose longtime brick-and-mortar music outlets because of digital plagiarism, or newspapers close because bloggers pick their bones clean, this is more than the necessary price of progress. We're losing something valuable that's never coming back. Our world is changing and Keen says it's time to stop and take stock before it's too late.

Early drafts of Keen's book have drawn scorn from some corners of cyberspace. But his is a principled conservative warning in the spirit of Edmund Burke. Don't we wish one hundred years ago that our forefathers had taken a serious look at how the automobile might change society? (Though they did invent the driver's license.)

Keen obviously stacks the argument in his favor. He could have devoted another several chapters to recount any number of ways in which the digital world is improving our economy, our culture and our values. But these days there is no shortage of cheerleaders to wave that banner. Keen set out to disrupt our complacent notions about how society is being reorganized.

He may be too late to stop history. Still, it's an important message to hear.

Biography
Charles Cooper is CNET News.com's executive editor of commentary.

More Perspectives

[markdoiron]

Why Web 2.0 is Good

Why Web 2.0 is good:<br /><br />1. Editors and newspaper owners are slanted. <br /><br />2. Scientists and other professionals often refuse to accept the truth (just consider how we treated ulcers 30 years ago). <br /><br />3. Music copyright holders charge too much money for their wares (which isn't a call to piracy, but rather a call to direct marketing of music from artists to consumers, cutting the middle-man).<br /><br />4. Too much information is required on niche topics that will never receive proper treatment unless those who are interested in it promote it themselves (check out <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.summitpost.com," target="_newWindow">http://www.summitpost.com,</a> a site dedicated to mountain climbers and backpackers, for a great example of enthusiast-created content).<br /><br />5. News, especially in the U.S., is often suppressed--perhaps not menacingly so, but because the news delivery sources don't see it as "improving ratings". <br /><br />6. .... please add your own--there are lots of reasons that Web 2.0 is good.<br /><br />mark d.<br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.summitpost.org/user_page.php?user_id=26307" target="_newWindow">http://www.summitpost.org/user_page.php?user_id=26307</a>

[billmosby]

I agree

What spurred me to chime in was the phrase " credible news by
objective professional journalists" contained in the article. I have
had many opportunities in my life to compare the products of
professional journalists with the actual events they wrote or
spoke about, and have only rarely found that the journalist's
story corresponded accurately with the reality. The most
valuable part of the internet is the amount of raw data available
on it. There is enough out there to allow sufficient validity
checking and to allow one to check on the validity of traditional
news sources as well. So when, for example, we wonder if
biofuels are a good thing, we can look at the numbers and
decide for ourselves. That is an improvement over the situation
we had up until the last decade or so.

[thenet411]

I disagree

While the mainstream media is slanted toward their own views and advertisers, I believe amateur bloggers are even more slanted toward their own views. Anyone with an opinion can throw it out there as fact these days. That is not a good thing. At least journalists have been trained to know the difference between objective reporting and op-ed. Amateurs believe that their opinions are fact and present them as such. Often amateurs publish outright lies and falsehoods to further their views and sometimes they perpetuate other falsehoods they read on yet other amateur blogs. All without fear of reprisals because they can use false names. At least professional journalists put their real names on what they write and we have the ability to take them to task for their writings. With many amateur blogs, we do not have the same opportunity.

[mcgrail]

Why Web 2.0 is good

I thought I'd respond to Mark D. number by number (see his post). I agree with him EXCEPT
1. Sure, editors and newspaper owners are slanted, but that's not the issue. Having a viewpoint is not corrosive of democracy. What is a serious problem is asserting opinions as facts, and facts that are not in evidence. Newspaper opinion columns are carefully scrutinized for their factual accuracy, just as hard news columns are. Mike Barnicle, among others, was suspended from his opinion column because he was accused of asserting facts that couldn't be verified. Sadly, it's inconceivable that a paid blogger would be so disciplined.
2. Scientists do not "refuse" to accept the truth, they merely insist that, with regard to contentious questions, the majority of scientific opinion in their field accept a certain position. This does mean that sometimes a truthful but minority opinion must wait until it has its adherents among those who rigorously test these assertions. The holder of the minority position does get to say, "I told you so," but this doesn't then mean that holders of minority scientific positions are always right.

[timcoyote]

I like amatuer

I would comment on his book or this article but anything I would say would be mediocre, unwise and not credible, so I?ll just put it on my blog. <br /><br />I will say that the amateur journalist or technophobe pushes the envelope and has a willingness to experiment and take risks that might not be profitable or good for their careers.

[dwnance]

Tardy April Fool's Joke?

I take it Keen's book was intended to be an April Fool's Day joke and he couldn't dream up the material fast enough. <br />"If we keep up this pace, there will be over five hundred million blogs by 2010, collectively corrupting and confusing popular opinion about everything from politics, to commerce, to arts and culture. <br />Its called democracy. I bet his father has a hereditary seat in British Parliament.

[epiac1216]

Democratization of the Media

Professional journalists are not always objective; what they write is often tainted by their own personal opinions, training, preferences and personalities. All to often we see that the media will publish what "sells" and not what is "true". The Gulf War was not objective; they gave us what they wanted us to believe. It was a sanitized war they gave us, which we all know was not true.<br /><br />A blogger writes his own personal opinions without thinking if it will sell or not. It is us the readers who determine the validity of their arguments. I believe more in many blogs than news coming from Fox News or CNN.<br /><br />Innovation comes from the democratization of the media. Look at the example of Firefox and Wikipedia, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.<br /><br />The stronghold of elitism is now an extinct species.

[ef66]

Democracy is good!

Keen has a point, there is a lot of garbage out there, but Web 2.0 is still young. I think Darwinian evolution will correct both the growth rate and quality. Perhaps he thinks it was better when we were spoon-fed by the establishment, but the establishment wasn?t perfect either, and the ?rabble? may prove more worthy than he thinks.

[enscorp]

Democracy is Tyranny.

We DO NOT LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY,

We live in a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.

The masses ARE a$$es.

[lepton68]

Let computers search for stuff you like, not popularity based sites

Social bookmarking can be good but it can be doctitorial and <br />subject to a voter fraud kind of abuse. I think computers should, <br />like a good assistant, learn what you like and go out pro-actively <br />and find stuff for you without you having to wade around yourself. <br />Grab popular stuff, but also obscure stuff you'd never find yourself. <br />Whatever you'll find interesting, that's the key. I made a website <br />that uses this concept, it's a unique new discovery engine at <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://" target="_newWindow">http://</a><br />www.myallo.com

[jestead]

Some cult.

A "cult" is generally understood to be a relatively small group of extremists. This self-publishing phenomenon is far too widespread for that, it's more the mainstream. The phrase "objective professional journalists" likewise misses the mark. Today's journalists are hardly objective, and though they are paid don't act professional.<br /><br />Traditional media no longer pretends to objectivity; news reads like the editorial section. Naturally the public seeks something more elsewhere.

[thenet411]

But who is accountable?

You raise a good point in that most media is no longer objective and the people do want something else. But, who is accountable for what they write? In this age of push-button publishing, anyone with an opinion can throw it out there. Anyone can say anything about anything or anyone without fear of reprisals because they can hide behind a false name. No one cares whether what they write is the truth anymore. So, if we can't trust traditional media and we can't trust bloggers where do we go for the truth?

[wjcnet2007]

More eco-idiocy

""Don't we wish one hundred years ago that our forefathers had taken a serious look at how the automobile might change society?""<br /><br />You mean how they changed society by making us infinitely more mobile, and radically changed the economy for the better? Please keep your non-sensical eco-idiocy out of otherwise interesting articles.

[eric.meyerson]

You forgot one

You forgot "and threatened all macro-fauna on planet Earth."

Actually examining the impact of the automobile -- the good and the bad -- is eco-idiocy? I suppose it was okay that GE dumped poison in the Hudson River, because GE also created great economic value.

[ClaudeCJ]

Isn't he contributing to the very thing he is lamenting?

But make no mistake about this erudite British-born entrepreneur: He is out to rattle Silicon Valley and the geekerati by detonating many of the comfortable myths attending the Web 2.0 era.<br /><br />----------------<br /><br />What hypocricy, Read: He is out to make money. <br /><br />I admire his entrepreneurship, write anything that touches a nerve with someone and sell it. <br /><br />We should all try it; contribute to the alleged problem in the same way he is doing it with this book.

[Broward Horne]

The Cultural Difusion

Cult of the Amateur - another datapoint supporting the "Cultural Diffusion" theory -<br /><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=the_cultural_diffusion_resurrectedv" target="_newWindow">http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=the_cultural_diffusion_resurrectedv</a>

[Broward Horne]

The Cultural Diffusion

Cult of the Amateur - another datapoint supporting the "Cultural Diffusion" theory -<br /><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=the_cultural_diffusion_resurrectedv" target="_newWindow">http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme/?entry=the_cultural_diffusion_resurrectedv</a>

[asdf]

Typical corporo-fascist , ruling-elite dirtbag

Just another corporo-fascist , ruling-elite dirtbag paid by corporations to spew his little sack of filth into your mind.<br /><br />Yeah, leave thought and speech to politicians and corporate elite and get back to work paying your taxes, little people. Oh, by the way, about that Iraq thing, we're going to have to adjust the bill we stick you with.<br /><br />Seriously, some people are genetically disposed to think that there needs to be an elite to rule over the majority, tell them what to think, how to think, what to do and how to do it. They can't help it- it's just how their brains interpret reality to them. You know, people like Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and all the little deviant twerps they surrounded themselves with. Then there's the nobodies-to-history who leave no mark but would have liked to if history had given them a chance. <br /><br />That would include Andrew Keen.<br /><br />The purpose of Keen's thesis is to legitimize the thinking of and act as a touchstone for the thinking of the corporo-fascists; a common point of departure for amoral, socicopathic, amphetamine-gulping "visionaries" who are having hallucinations of reworking the world to permanently install themselves as the power-elite. Same old "we're most special, and we need to rule" crap that every 70 years or so makes everyday people like us have to pick up our guns and go to war to gut the monsters they create. <br /><br />Andrew Keen thinks you're, essentially, human junk, polluting "his" internet and ideosphere with your waste, and he and his CEO buddies want to clean it, and you, up. <br /><br />I think we know where this one goes.

[enscorp]

Pot calling kettle black

Actually. He speaks volumes about the type of person YOU are by expecting this type of response. I don't see the elitist nature of his arguments at all. Rather, he's simply stating that people like YOU think they know it all and have, or should have, some HUGe impact on society by opeing a blog, or engagin in some other BS Web 2.OH crap that makes the average DumbA$$ think they can actually write, think and/or otherwise be their own little elitist to spew thei garbage on the world.
IN addition, the average DumbA$$ actually thinks everything they read on the internet is truth. LIke yourself.

Obviously you can't take criticism because you have no valid position to stand on and have no real ability to argue intelligently.

So. Why don't you drag yourself out of mediocracy and PROVE him wrong. NO, instead, all you can do is post to the CNET news website (As if this is REAL and UNBIASED news too) and boo-hoo about all that is wrong in the world while you sit back and perform your role as an "average" POS consumer.

BTW - Iraq has ZERO to do with this article or your Proposed (and fallacious) argument. It's just proof of your lack of true intelligence and ability to discern truth from fiction, nor understand the simplicity of this man's argument.

[c|net Reader]

Well Argued

Your well-reasoned, professional arguments certainly swayed my thinking! Oh, wait! I was thinking of something else. You wrote vitriolic ad hominem attacks on an eclectic range of real and imagined historical personas to make a simple point: you think Andrew Keen wants to be part of a ruling elite. I wonder if you even read the book to be able to justify giving an opinion.

[asdf]

Andrew doesn't like THIS either... any more than the King

Story: Coop's Corner Podcast: Folly of Web 2.0 amateurs<br /><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://news.com.com/More+clips+mocking+Thai+king+posted+on+YouTube/2100-1028_3-6174042.html?tag=html.alert" target="_newWindow">http://news.com.com/More+clips+mocking+Thai+king+posted+on+YouTube/2100-1028_3-6174042.html?tag=html.alert</a><br /><br />And he doesn't like it any more than the King of Thailand !<br /><br />Roll up your sleeves, my effete, coiffed and chauffeured little elitist and make things better rather than setting yourself up as judge, jury and executioner and trying to tell other people what they may or may not say.<br /><br />How can a grown man reach whatever age this guy is and now grow out of the most fundamental narcissism? This is a broken human being, completely devoid of the will or ability to engage the world as it actually is. Instead he posits some vague, just-so alternate reality where only ideas that make sense to him and his buds are somehow "permitted". The only idea here worth thinking about is, will this broken pansy be taken seriously by anyone? Because if he is, they'll be going after anyone who wears glasses in no time. Apparently, this long-confirmed market narcissist who believes that the market will magically be salvation of all humankind's problems doesn't extend that kind of capability to the market of ideas.<br /><br />But isn't this really what conservativism has become since the rise of the neocons? The market is everything and will solve all problems, except the marketplace of ideas, which needs to be tightly regulated. They and their cronies rule have brilliant ideas and find a playing field to actually act them out. The rest of fund their visionary schemes, and not just Iraq (800 billion) but energy deregulation in California, Enron and all the rest, through our taxes and send our children to their wars.<br /><br />And that's the way it should be, folks. That's what this conservative is all about... silencing dissent and novel thought while putting all the dirty unwashed masses like ourselves on a long, forced march into their glorious market-driven utopia.... they keep the dissenters whose obsession with "reality" and their cult of "facts" only serve to muddle the clarity of the ruling elite's glorious vision... they keep THOSE people in their place .. on the battlefield to die.<br /><br />Hey you! Private 1st class with an M16 staying up all night watching out for the sleepy elites in the Green Zone, yeah YOU! You get OFF that computer and CAN your blog... NOW. Who are these people who think their opinion counts? When we want their opinion, we'll give it to them.<br /><br />It's so great to be a ruling elite. You really must try it sometime.

[Reader20]

Keen misunderstands democracy

This article is a typical opinion expressed by people who like to pay lip service to democracy without really understanding what it means. What the author is failing to understand is that there are no shortcuts in a democracy - if you want the quality of stuff at the top to improve, the whole pyramid has to go up. If you want good art, it is not sufficient to have a government-funded elite institute of art. Teach every citizen to create/appreciate art, and automatically the quality of art at all levels will improve, leading to excellent art at the top. And the system will sustain itself for a lot longer.

[j.e.buhler]

The real problem is....

people who have lost their ability to judge what they read and not take everything served up at face value. That applies to what's served up by professional journalists or by amateurs.<br />I don't need any 1984 control. I am able to make my own decisions based on as much input as I like to evaluate. <br /><br />I'd rather have too much information to base my judgments on than too little. <br /><br />As Pink Floyd so aptly put it - we don't need no thought control! No CNN or Fox or any biased media to tell us what the true facts are.

[g_m]

Dinosaur cry

Boo-hoo, technology is developing without Keen's approval. <br />Another conservative moron who'd get us back to typewriters, or <br />maybe keep technology and literacy for the privileged few. It is a <br />worthelss, obsolete, insignificant message not worth wasting <br />any time over it. And a very stupid one, too - is the economy of, <br />say, African countries bad because of Web 2.0? Just another old, <br />useless pathetic man who wasn't good enough to make any <br />money on Web 2.0 so now he's whining and complaining about <br />it. Good choice of the verb "bemoan" - his opinion does sound <br />like moaning.

[Misouinfo]

Wikipedia - a dictatorship of idiots

What we need is a wake-up call about the quality of sites like Wikipedia - which calls itself an encyclopedia but is a rather unreliable political campaign instrument for anonymous editors with a hidden agenda. A wake-up call about the fact that misinformation on the Internet is more widespread than it seems and that ?free information? can be very costly once you wrecked your health, finance or friendships using bogus information from so called social networking sites. I am not calling for authorities but the amount of data - useless as well as useful - on the Internet is way bigger than the capability of its users to correctly evaluate it. And that is why I think a discussion like the one Andrew Keen is stirring up is way overdue.

[zen&stimpy]

We are in the throes of the journalistic new wave movement.

Back in the '80's synthesizers were frowned upon by the trained musical elite because they saw talentless monkeys selling millions of records without having paid their dues - because they looked good on TV and pop music isn't particularly demanding. All they really did was swell the ranks of the mediocre and produced a few really talented artists who embraced the new technology and expanded the musical landscape. <br /><br />While here are always going to be lottery winners in any profession, if one wants to make a living at something, education, training and discipline are a surer way to get there. All technology does is give most the opportunity to indulge a hobby and a few the opportunity to pursue a new passion. As many times as mainstream journalism gets the story wrong in eagerness to get the sensational headline out first, it's pretty obvious they haven't cornered the market on objective professional journalism. The desire to distinguish oneself from the rabble will result in a few intrepid souls searching that much harder for the truth and trying to maintain journalistic credibility and integrity, because trusted sources of information will always be valuable.<br /><br />Synthesizers didn't result in the death of virtuoso musicianship, because with very few exceptions, the tool is only as good the craftsman who holds it. Web 2.0 won't result in the death of credible journalism for the same reason. <br /><br />I also don't expect that lamenting the rise of short form bloggers as one tries to sell copies of an ink and paper tome is going to do much for his credibility either.