the antisocial web
I've been blogging for almost two months now, and still no rants. That's so very unlike me, so I figured a new year, new chances. Let's start off 2008 in true Onderhond fashion.
When you hear people talking about Web 2.0, chances are they might call it the social web. The idea behind this, is that we are building the web together. We as individuals provide data, we organize data, we prioritize data. And that data is public, free to be exploited by everyone. The web is us, and we are the web.
We are data tanks
Sadly a lot of sites started seeing us in a web 2.0 way. Individuals are considered great big vessels of unlimited data, ready to be recruited, exploited and cultivated. We are lured to sites to give up our information. Our bookmarks, images, musical preferences, ... Doesn't really matter what we do, as long as it can be batch processed and remade into statistics. All our data is available, but all that counts is popularity of our data so it can be mangled into a tag cloud.
I try to stay away from sites like these as long as I, as an individual, have little benefit from a personal account. If I want an online photo album, I will integrate it in my website and my bookmarks are safely stored within my browser profile. I don't see the added value of storing them online or sharing them with others, as I myself have little interest in the bookmarks or photos from unknown and unrelated people.
Together, alone
The social web reminds me a lot of the parties I used to visit. If you see footage of big raves or discotheques, it looks crowded and busy. It resembles a social event, where people gather and party together. But in reality, if you're among the crowd, no matter how many people are present, you are very much alone. Most people there don't talk or socialize, they are lost in the music screaming through their heads. They listen, dance and react, alone.
Looking at web 2.0 sites, it is very much like that. People have their own profiles, their own little space within the project. Looking at it from afar, you see a crowd of people providing data together, each person doing their part within the data harvest. But when you are a part of it, you're really just all by yourself. And no matter how hard these web 2.0 sites try (see the comments on MySpace, YouTube, last.fm, ...), debate and actual communication is lost among all the (often completely useless) data. All it does is underline the sad platform for communication and social behavior provided by such sites.
The old days
Call me nostalgic, but give me a good old web forum anytime. A place where you voice your opinion, people react and a discussion is started. A place where people actually talk instead of provide data. That's what being social is about. It's not about gathering data, together. It's about interacting, together. Actually talking to other people, living on feedback, adding personal input to a situation. Instead, we are snatching the efforts of others for our own benefit, under the pretense of socializing.
The social web is a cold and barren place, dominated by statistics, where communication is restricted to dumbed down one-liners and fuzzy catchphrases aimed at other people you'll never see or talk to again. It's not a social gathering, but a data processing machine where people are lured into with a false feeling of togetherness.
Web 2.0 is the antisocial web. Don't believe the myths.