Webocracy

I was sent a link to an interview with Andrew Keen and Chris Anderson in October, 2006 concerning “Debate 2.0- Weighing the merits of the new Webocracy ”. It is an article that I think all will enjoy reading after finishing the books by Keen and Shirky. There are several questions that are asked that I was thinking I would like to ask Keen while I was reading his book and you get the benefit of seeing his answers. For those that may not wish to read the lengthy article, I copied and pasted some excerpts that I found interesting:

Question: When I say Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, what do you two think?

Part of Chris Anderson’s response: The old model of encyclopedia was the be-all and end-all of information. The new model of encyclopedia is a starting point for investigation.

Must it be approached with caution and a certain amount of skepticism? Absolutely. Is any single entry guaranteed to be right? No. Collectively, it's the best single place to start an investigation or a search for knowledge. I think it's the best in the world.

Andrew Keen’s response: I wouldn't call it an encyclopedia. I think it's a dictionary. I think it's a hyper-democratic dictionary. My biggest concern is not so much mistakes, as Chris was saying, but its size. It's a very bloated, disorganized thing. It seems to me that many of the entries have no real ability to distinguish things which are important from things that aren't.

Question: Is there too much noise in the world? Andrew, in a way, you are saying, "I want a handful of people who know what they are talking about to tell me what's going on in the world." Chris is saying, "I'm willing to filter a million voices myself and I'll find out what's important that way." Is that what we're talking about here?

Anderson: Fantastic. When you say I can filter a million voices myself, I am filtering a million voices, but not doing it myself. What I have is layers of filters. There are people out there who have more time than me, have more expertise than me or just find things that I haven't found. I have maybe 200 voices out there that I listen to, but collectively I'm filtering a million voices through all those layers. As a result, I get a richer, higher-quality diet of information better suited to me to pull from a wider pool and wider variety of sources. It's not that much trouble. It's much easier than it's ever been before.

Keen: Again, the thing that concerns me is we seem to be going on this very, very long, complicated journey to get back to where we started. Let me ask you this question: What do you know now that you wouldn't be able to know 15 or 20 years ago?

Anderson: I'm a little confused by the question.

Keen: These layers you are talking about -- give me a concrete example of what you can know through them that traditional mainstream media doesn't enable you to know, which you think is valuable.

Anderson: The Microsoft example I gave was one. The traditional media was not going to give me that level of resolution about my very narrow interest. Traditional media was not going to get scaled down to that level of interest because it's too small to be a commercial proposition. But, that's my interest. I have some very broad interests and I have some very narrow interests.

Anderson’s Microsoft Example that he is referring to:

Question: Another core tenet of Web 2.0 has been "citizen journalism." Can the mainstream media be replaced, or supported, by citizen reporters gathering and disseminating information for free?

Anderson: I'm not sure I know what the word journalism means anymore. Let me give you an example.

My interaction with Microsoft has changed in recent years. I used to read the speeches and see the press releases from Bill (Gates) and Steve (Ballmer) and absorb the top-down messaging from the company. Now, as a consumer, I'm more likely to read the individual blogs of the engineers involved with various products I'm interested in.

I use Windows media center, and there is no level of detail about that product that I'm not interested in. I have a fantastic amount of interest in that, but virtually no interest in some of Microsoft's other products.

Those people, in sort of describing the product development, are doing what used to be the domain of the trade press. Clearly, they are not journalists. They're talking about themselves. In many ways, they are providing an information function that journalism used to do on its own.

Source:

SF Gate, hone of the San Francison Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/15/BUG4KLP3CL1.DTL

Participating in this interview were Deputy Business Editor Alan T. Saracevic, staff writers Dan Fost, Ellen Lee, Verne Kopytoff and Benny Evangelista, and editorial assistant Steve Corder.

This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Shirky versus Keen

It doesn't take long for one to see the dichotomy between these two. Like most topics one can see the extremes on both sides of the issue. I generally like to look at the extremes on any topic and then seek to find balance somewhere in the middle. That is not to say "straight" down the middle, maybe that is not even possible, but rather average out somewhere in the middle. Therefore, when looking at the views of Shirky and Keen, there are areas where I lean one way and areas where I lean the other. However, I lean more towards Shirky as a proponent of using the technologies that Shirky seems to be for and Keen is adamantly against.

I will not spent time rehashing Shirky's views as we all just read his book and have blogged and discussed it. However, it is clear that Shirky covers the positive aspect of evolving technologies and the exciting new ways that they are being used in society. Shirky even seems to make a concerted effort to dispel the concerns about gatekeepers of information and the possible extinction of traditional sources for information. He feels that society will police the information and maybe it will result in more gatekeepers that will ensure even more that the correct information can be obtained.

Conversely, Keen sounds the alarms...The Internet is EVIL! Run for your lives! The monkeys are taking over! No more experts and cultural gatekeepers! Keen says, "the mainstream media is being replaced by a personalized one...rather than seeking the news we BECOME the news, information, and culture." (p. 7). So he seems to think that the gatekeepers are being overtaken and the gate is wide open for people to share and broadcast themselves and their views. Now the monkeys are "authoring the future" (p. 9). and are making it up with no policing, guidance, or wisdom. No professional editors providing evaluation of material and content, just "amateurs gone wild" or in some cases elaborate conspiracies by special interest groups creating their own view of the truth. So that "one person's truth becomes as a "true" as anyone else's." (p. 17). Will today's "Y" generation be able to discern what is good and reliable information? I can understand some of his points and for example agree that some of YouTube is worthless. However, as with anything else, are we going to only focus on potential negatives and do away with something that can also be used for good? An all or nothing approach? People have car wrecks and get killed, therefore cars are evil...therefore, do not get into a car! To me his overall logic is quite flawed, even though he makes some good points and certainly establishes some things to consider.

Well, I decided that I would beat Lila to posting a video from YouTube about Keen. It is an hour long and apparently from a book tour in 2007 for his book (the cult of the amateur) that we are reading. Interestingly, it is presented by "Authors @ Google"...maybe they didn't read the parts where he was bashing Google. I also wanted to post it because he seems to really hate YouTube and I find it interesting that he is now there! so Google presents him, he is on YouTube, and I have blogged about him...I feel like a monkey...okay maybe not!