Friday, August 31, 2007

An Alternative Perspective

This initial post will be my first contribution to the wonderful world of blogging. Up until the present, I have (though, not deliberately) refrained from creating a virtual soapbox to make any occupational or personal convictions known. Prior to the beginning of this course, other Web 2.0 technologies like wikis and RSS feeds have also been somewhat overlooked (except for my chronic addiction to Wikipedia, of course). I'm grateful that the projects I will be working on in LIS 5433 throughout the semester will require me to better educate myself on these thriving interactive web technologies. I certainly cannot say that my life is void of these 2.0 trends, though. I habitually (sometimes, much to my chagrin) log into social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, enjoy wasting away my valuable leisure time looking up miscellaneous clips on YouTube, and spend an ample amount of time on Library Thing at work and at home. When it comes down to it, I'm quite enamored with a great deal of the content the second generation of the web has spawned.

While browsing through a news magazine earlier this week, I noticed a review of a recent book release predicated on the condemnation of Web 2.0. According to the review, author Andrew Keen's book entitled The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet I Killing Our Culture, makes a somewhat scathing assessment of today's interactive and "tasteless" web environment. This book sparked my interest because it is authored not by your run-of-the-mill technophobe, but by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has made his living working with these evolving Internet technologies. I'm not saying one thing or another about the content of this book (I haven't read it), but a dissenting opinion of Web 2.0 may be edifying, or at least entertaining. Maybe another blog entry later in the semester can be used to discuss my personal thoughts on the book once I've actually read it.

2 comments:

Linda Summers said...

Jerod,

This is by no means an attempt to dissuade you from reading Keen's book, but the subtitle (i.e. "how today's internet is killing our culture") makes me suspect the intellectual quality of its content - unless, of course, Keen is using irony to attract those he wants to enlighten ;-)

If Keen is not using irony in the subtitle, and truly believes that "our" culture is dying - rather than evolving into something new - I wonder at the quality of the edification that is to be attained by reading such rantings.

LA Summers

jgerfis said...

Linda,

Anytime a nonfiction title's subtitle begins with "How," I assume it to be the unabashed opinion of the author. Therefore, I would treat Keen's book simply as one man's opinion.

Thanks for your comment!