If you're engaging with the internet gurus who are very evangelical about Web 2.0 you'll hear a very good argument. And that's for the first time in history, millions of people around the world can have a voice. They can input all their thoughts into this system, and people can read them unmediated by anyone. Now, that's interesting, and it's a good and a challenging argument. But if you stop and think about it for a second, it's also wrong.

It's wrong in an instructive way. To confuse any kind of democratic movement with typing words into an electronic machine which no one may ever read is really quite insulting. Given the history of modern democracy - everything from the French Revolution to the Civil Rights movement, to the Miners' Strike - to say that 'this is the first time people have had a voice' actually tells you a great deal about the lack of understanding the Web 2.0 people have.

James Harkin: It's easy to be written off as a miserable old bastard.

Andrew Orlowski: Hah. Well brace yourself, I think you will be called that anyway by people who have the Web 2.0 religion, from their point of view everyone who disagrees is a miserable old bastard.

For the Register-phobic among us, a pointer to some interesting commentary on "Web 2.0" behaviour:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/24/ja...rbia_interview/



Book.

You might have stared out of your window in suburbia in the 1950s and seen a few people across the street, but now you can stare at millions of other people. The danger is that when you spend all your time deciphering what other people are up to, you never get around to doing something original on your own, because you're so swamped by opportunities to go onto other people's lives on blogs, social networks and Twitter.

Technology should be so much better. The web has hardly started, really. But only the new priesthood of web designers are allowed to criticise it, or make improvements. There is a grain of truth in what the evangelists say, it's the mountain of crap they've piled on top of it that's the problem.
The evangelists are simply wandering about waving empty books, saying "Look, a book! How incredible. Pay me fifteen grand to talk about an empty book."

There's another view of Web 2.0 evangelists which I call 'Why not?' For example, 'Why not turn up at Grand Central Station wearing underpants in a big Flash Mob?'
But I don't think 'Why Not?' is good enough. Things need to have a purpose. If you have a project or a purpose, you can use the medium to achieve that. With no ideas, no project, you have nothing. The evangelists simply believe can use this metaphysical glow of this medium to woo people.
People forget the world's first Flash Mob in 2003, organised by Bill Wasik, was a joke. It was a joke on the gullibility of New York hipsters who would react to any kind of electronic information, and do anything you told them.