Old School Vs Web 2.0

The outlandish comment storm surrounding Scoble’s Immigration post, reminds me of a feature that the old school “discussion boards” (how quaint does that sound to you sWANKy 2.0 hipsters?) or my fave NNTP protocol, had; which is the threaded discussion.

In a comment he posted to the Winextra blog, Scoble made the statement:

This medium is about conversations, not one-way messages.

Well, conversations tend to meander along at their own pace, and the attention span of the 2.0 generation is remarkably short, so it seems somewhat as a surprise that web fora (or is it forums- which seems far less pretentious, but somehow wrong…) and blogs/blog comments don’t have some way to thread their circuitous path, keeping point and counterpoint cleverly grouped.

Perhaps the light-speed attention span of the average 2.0er is beyond even composing a clever rebuttal to the OP (that’s original post for you non-nntp types).

Which all just goes to prove the wisdom behind this old school newsgroup saying in the picture.

5,000 people read my webpost and 4500 of them trackedback to them in rebuttal of what a complete nonsense it was.  This makes me an influencer…

Yeah right…

Identity mishmash(up)

Once more, Steven from Winextra makes an interesting point on Why Web 2.0 is dangerous.

Of course, I just had to comment…

Personally I like the web and web 2.0, but I like to stay as a dog. There are few ppl in the online universe that would be able to connect the dots. You are one of them Steven, and I trust you. I trust you a lot more than any A-list asshole “influencer” you care to name.

What scares me more though is the potential for an organisation I trust, say a worthy non-profit, or a cash strapped start up that I may support, or even work for storing MY details on some web 2.0 app that they signed up for based on say a paid for mention in one of those A-list influencer’s newsletters, or more latterly blogs.

This has actually happened to me in the past, having shelled out cold hard readies for a POS shareware app, that came highly recommended by a low-life – who at the time certainly was an influencer, of them that knew no better. Imagine my horror when I found this app to be total junk, and yet the writer had never even used it for longer than it took for the cheque to clear.

But I digress, back to our poor, or maybe even (worse) a wealthy but wannabe cool organisation. What is to prevent one of the infamous spam/spyware merchant houses from setting up some seemingly cool web 2.0 app, or (worse) buying an already legitimate one for a ridiculous price and having access to all of the data that the original organisation has gathered from its members?

While ultimately the responsibility lies with the trusted organisation, the harm occurs to the individual. If you think I’m being paranoid, check it out. How many organisations have as a secretary or committee person, a member that has an interest in IT/web type stuff?

How many god-awful amateur web pages have you seen as the homepage for some club/organisation or mm & pop business?

Just yesterday I happened across a church choir blog. How many of the choir members are 100% happy about their details being posted? How many even know? What other web 2.0 apps are being used to run the organisation?
What if wordpress ever decided to sell out to say a wealthy marketing firm, or a media mogul like Rupert Murdoch?

Even if there was an uproar and all the “cool” people pulled their accounts, the money men would still have all the data they need. Then again, why buy the company, when a halfway decent web 2.0 “mashup” could harvest all the data for them anyway?

I guess this is why Time Magazine has made the collective “YOU” person of the year. We are our own biggest sell-outs.

Of course nobody really wants your info

Yeah right…

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Do you know the handshake?

I was perusing my regular read of Winextra the other day, when I spied a comment by one of Steven’s visitors that suggested that once one becomes an A-list blogger then one must be hugely selective in to whom one links.

So I guess this just perpetuates the Tsar-like grip of the A-list and self-styled “influencers” then.

Only link to the ppl who can shell out 2k a pop for a conference, or that get to hold court with the real influencers.

At least these are all people that can be absolutely trusted. Not like some unknown Z-lister eh?

How many web pages are online right now? What is the average number of links per page? The top blog on technorati has less than 30K links to it.

Influencers.

Yeah right…