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. . . Web 2.0 Cracks Start to Show (Oct. 27, 2005):
While there's no strict agreement on exactly what Web 2.0 is, much of it involves public participation and contributions from the commons.
Web 2.0 is very open, but all that openness has its downside: When you invite the whole world to your party, inevitably someone pees in the beer.
These days, peed-in beer is everywhere. Blogs begat splogs -- junk diaries filled with keyword-rich text to lure traffic for ad revenue.
Google's PageRank is unfairly skewed by profit-driven search engine optimizers. And experiments in participatory media attract goatses as quickly as they do legitimate entries, like the Los Angeles Times' experimental wiki, which was pulled after it was defaced.
Earlier tech innovations -- Usenet, BBSes, free e-mail systems, even the open-source software movement -- have long faced similar challenges. And many have buckled under the pressure. It is indeed an unfortunate truth of the human condition that one psychopath can force immense investments in protection. And the world has become more psychopathic in some ways. When I was a lad in the '50's, hanging out around Chicago and Boston, one often saw news stands with no attendant. A customer dropped a dime in an open cigar box and picked up a paper. You could leave your beer, sitting right out there.
posted by James DeLong @ 1:49 PM | General
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