Thinking 2.0, or how "web 2.0" structure affects online thinking and information sharing
The notion that PowerPoint has helped forge modern business thought is an old one. (The idea is that since business management makes decisions using PowerPoint presentations, the decision-making process gets boiled down to a few bullet points -- what would fit on a PowerPoint screen -- and this can preclude more in-depth discussion and analysis.)
So what about in the blogging realm? Are blogs being streamed into a certain format? I'm not talking about efforts to make all online content conform to common content structures. This is about how we're seeing blogging change.
Much attention is paid to the economics of it.
But what about the technology of it. On BlogHer, mir ponders this:
First of all I read the really intense discussion about "growing a pair" the other day on Blogher.
Then I read the post about Dropping the A-list mentality and the discussion of maybe, women converse and communicate in a different way online.
Then I read Danielles post in which she self-identifies as a negro, and then wonders aloud what audience-impact her choice of descriptor will have.
Finally I read What is technorati anyways? and picked up some ideas about tagging, and popularity.
So what's my point? My point is that i guess I am framing my role here, not just as the editor of book and literary blogs, but as someone who combs through the data and sometimes pulls out important factlets about the words we use. What they are good for, the damage they can do, and the fact that a vocabulary used in a techno-social setting is a very powerful thing indeed.
Then she asks:
I am fascinated by the way colloquial language creates order or disorder on the web, and also how only words that have weight survive. What does that mean for the unpopular tags?
Unlike a library, where books stay in view long after they are relevent, how are tags creating a heirarchies of taxonomic/linguistic power in web content?
How (if we want to), can we subvert a power structure that is based on algorithms and on usage, rather than the real strength behind language, which requires that the reader understand the words (if not the authors) intention, and the context the word is being used in?
Some interesting things to ponder here.
I appreciate the assumption that the form (whether it be PowerPoint or Tags etc.) will affect the content.
Regarding tags, Laura quoting mir is concerned they might lead to a kind of group-think or algorithm-based cultural consquences. I'm not too worried.
First, a tag is just a pointer to a thread; it's like the noise of a crowd for someone walking on a street looking for the people. The tag leads the way to where people are hangin', but it doesn't determine the nature of the conversation or whether multiple opinions will be welcome at the conversation.
It isn't just unpopular tags that get left "behind." Web 2.0 treats old posts poorly as well. Posts that are just a few days old are ancient. But for someone arriving to do research -- not looking to join the crowd -- the search engine comes in handy to "resurrect the dead" messages which can then find another life and use.
Shai
It's a word. And unless you use a word in the same way as everyone else, your tag links won't lead to much, will they?
And what about more in-depth ideas? How are they to be tagged? Sure, one can stumble through broader pools of posts tagged by a lower common demoninator, but already you're working against the structure of tagging.
The same goes for any finding or presenting system. Impose any structure and you're affecting what people do to work within that structure.
Your note made me think of the sister in The Poisenwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver who was "brain-injured" at birth. She saw the world in wonderfully different, rich, and complex ways that other people couldn't. She learned things from reading books backwards and could, without much effort, create long and complex palindromes. The "presenting system" of her brain is inextricable from the unique gift she had to offer the world. It also contributes to her suffering and lonliness in that few people could understand her.
Another book comes to mind, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon. It is a novel written in the voice of a 16 year-boy with autism. What seems to outsiders like bizarre inscrutable behaviors like lying on the ground in the fetal position rocking in response to loud noise turns out to be the most normal behavior you could imagine given the "presenting system" of his brain. And it isn't all bad either. The autistic brain sees the world more directly and honestly than a "normal" brain days. There's much less lying and artifice.
As a reader I come away from the experience of these books and look at the people in my life and realize, "we all have different 'presenting systems.'" And all along I've been making assumptions that somehow we were the same.
I vote against trying to create in technology what we can't do in life -- to eviscerate the presenting system. Rather, I vote for acknowledging that we need multiple systems. Each system has something to offer and each system is profoundly limited.
The beauty of Web 2.0 is about the enabling of and celebration of multiple voices within an underlying ethic that really gets that nobody, no culture, no country, no religion, has the whole truth.
Tagging arose as kind of a developers fad in the evolution of Web 2.0. And yes, it is profoundly limited. As blogs like this one promote meta-discussions about the process of what we are doing, we'll be more easily able to evaluate what what we can and can't get from tagging, and anything else.
Shai, do you blog somewhere?
My goal is to go live by April 10. I'm still debating between Drupal or WordPress. For just a blog, I'd choose WordPress -- and I know it better than Drupal. But I have other reasons to learn Drupal, and it just seems so powerful and with a great community behind it.
But I better decide soon!
Thanks for the encouragement. I'll definitely add rare pattern and blogher to my blog roll.
You have my email.