My OperaCarr contrary on Web 2.0, WiKi, and Rapture of the Internet
Wednesday, October 26, 2005 1:58:33 AM
Nicholas Carr is the author of a controversial idea, embodied in his book by the same title, called Does IT Matter
It is a contrary view that IT is now a utility service and does not confer competitive advantage simply by the ordinary use of computers. On his blog Carr also takes on the "rapture" of some visionary views of the concept of a participatory Internet aka Web 2.0. He slaps the Wikipedia pretty hard and has a followup on its commercial venture announced this week with Answers.com, which is also a partner with Opera.
Where Carr really gets going is his view that the concept of Web 2.0 is nothing more than the latest version of electronic commerce. He's skeptical of the open source movement and even more skeptical of not-for-profit collaborative movements on the Internet. His blog entry has got a lot of people stirred up. Here's the lead and the elevator closer. It's not along piece overall, and probably worth your time.
The amorality of Web 2.0
October 03, 2005 NIcholas Carr
From the start, the World Wide Web has been a vessel of quasi-religious longing. And why not? For those seeking to transcend the physical world, the Web presents a readymade Promised Land. On the Internet, we're all bodiless, symbols speaking to symbols in symbols. The early texts of Web metaphysics, many written by thinkers associated with or influenced by the post-60s New Age movement, are rich with a sense of impending spiritual release; they describe the passage into the cyber world as a process of personal and communal unshackling, a journey that frees us from traditional constraints on our intelligence, our communities, our meager physical selves. We become free-floating netizens in a more enlightened, almost angelic, realm.
But as the Web matured during the late 1990s, the dreams of a digital awakening went unfulfilled. The Net turned out to be more about commerce than consciousness, more a mall than a commune. And when the new millenium arrived, it brought not a new age but a dispiritingly commonplace popping of a bubble of earthly greed. Somewhere along the way, the moneychangers had taken over the temple. The Internet had transformed many things, but it had not transformed us. We were the same as ever.
[snip]
Like it or not, Web 2.0, like Web 1.0, is amoral. It's a set of technologies - a machine, not a Machine - that alters the forms and economics of production and consumption. It doesn't care whether its consequences are good or bad. It doesn't care whether it brings us to a higher consciousness or a lower one. It doesn't care whether it burnishes our culture or dulls it. It doesn't care whether it leads us into a golden age or a dark one. So let's can the millenialist rhetoric and see the thing for what it is, not what we wish it would be.
It is a contrary view that IT is now a utility service and does not confer competitive advantage simply by the ordinary use of computers. On his blog Carr also takes on the "rapture" of some visionary views of the concept of a participatory Internet aka Web 2.0. He slaps the Wikipedia pretty hard and has a followup on its commercial venture announced this week with Answers.com, which is also a partner with Opera.
Where Carr really gets going is his view that the concept of Web 2.0 is nothing more than the latest version of electronic commerce. He's skeptical of the open source movement and even more skeptical of not-for-profit collaborative movements on the Internet. His blog entry has got a lot of people stirred up. Here's the lead and the elevator closer. It's not along piece overall, and probably worth your time.
The amorality of Web 2.0
October 03, 2005 NIcholas Carr
From the start, the World Wide Web has been a vessel of quasi-religious longing. And why not? For those seeking to transcend the physical world, the Web presents a readymade Promised Land. On the Internet, we're all bodiless, symbols speaking to symbols in symbols. The early texts of Web metaphysics, many written by thinkers associated with or influenced by the post-60s New Age movement, are rich with a sense of impending spiritual release; they describe the passage into the cyber world as a process of personal and communal unshackling, a journey that frees us from traditional constraints on our intelligence, our communities, our meager physical selves. We become free-floating netizens in a more enlightened, almost angelic, realm.
But as the Web matured during the late 1990s, the dreams of a digital awakening went unfulfilled. The Net turned out to be more about commerce than consciousness, more a mall than a commune. And when the new millenium arrived, it brought not a new age but a dispiritingly commonplace popping of a bubble of earthly greed. Somewhere along the way, the moneychangers had taken over the temple. The Internet had transformed many things, but it had not transformed us. We were the same as ever.
[snip]
Like it or not, Web 2.0, like Web 1.0, is amoral. It's a set of technologies - a machine, not a Machine - that alters the forms and economics of production and consumption. It doesn't care whether its consequences are good or bad. It doesn't care whether it brings us to a higher consciousness or a lower one. It doesn't care whether it burnishes our culture or dulls it. It doesn't care whether it leads us into a golden age or a dark one. So let's can the millenialist rhetoric and see the thing for what it is, not what we wish it would be.
