DISQUS

Mat · 2 years ago

Nice work taking the brawl back to your home turf Ben ;)

"We get to overwhelm ourselves, destroy our attention capacity and move on."

This is bad! If this is what the tools we collectively create do to us, then we seriously have to step back and re-evaluate our motivations for building web technologies in the first place.

The technologies we build should have the intention of lessening the not-insignificant problems we face. To build technologies that have the opposite effect, that erode our sense of being and our capacity to interpret the world is simple wrong-headed of us.

Dismissing the issue by claiming that it's OK to damage the early-adopter crowd is myopic. These technologies (and not only necessarily the good ones) WILL seep through into the collective social fabric.

As technologists I think we have a stewardship role to play in bringing to the rest of society technologies designed for the greater good. Too few people in our little bubble actually consider the ramifications of what they build (and use!) preferring to simply build (use) for the sake of building (using). I think we can, and should, do better than that by being more thoughtful about what we architect and why.

Yu^2 · 2 years ago

I think having bloggers as journalists to be trusted is the general consensus of the online world. After all social media "shows a promise in the future" (http://www.nextfiftyyears.com/2007/07/examining...) according to the Next Fifty Years.
I think bloggers will be the next movers and shakers of the world.

Terra Andersen · 2 years ago

I definitely agree! I believe blogger's influence will increase over the coming years. Remember.. how many new blogs are being created everyday?? (a ton).

-terra
www.betterforbusiness.com

Ben Yoskovitz · 2 years ago

Mat - Someone has to experiment. Someone has to be the guinea pig. That falls to early adopters to figure out what works and what doesn't, and bring to the masses technology that does help.

I don't think anyone builds technology with the intention of "not helping". That doesn't mean everyone builds technology to save the world mind you... How the technology helps, and its place in the social fabric, has to be figured out.

Brown Baron · 2 years ago

I think you hit the bullseye Ben. It will be interesting to see how this develops. I wonder if we're going to see another push for a code of ethics for bloggers.

Ben Yoskovitz · 2 years ago

Brown Baron - Let's hope we don't get into the Code of Ethics for Bloggers again, it can't work.

It's something I've already comment on (against):
http://www.instigatorblog.com/we-dont-need-a-bl...

Dan and Jennifer · 2 years ago

This/now is a very powerful time in the evolution of "media", and our evolution as a society.

I wouldn't worry too much about "overcrowding" and the "signal to noise ratio". follow the evolution, it'll be very interesting. people will gravitate to what they consider the "good sites", like TechCrunch for example. But the face of "media" is changing very fast.

Have an awesome day!
Dan & Jennifer

vaspers · 2 years ago

We humans whine and complain about how hard it is to remember, so they invent books.

Then we complain that there are bad and wrong books, and only a chosen few get to publish them anyway.

So they invent the web, where for the first time in history, the average person has a global voice, a universal publishing access.

No we complain about "too much information" and pollution of new media venues.

What a bunch of crybabies.

This is a Historical First: the internet, web, blogosphere, lifecasting, the whole humachine movement.

As we merge with the Machine Realm, it has promised me that they will be merciful as they delete and replace us. Merciful to me, I mean.

Ben Yoskovitz · 2 years ago

Ah Vaspers - Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Always...interesting. And polarizing. I'd love to see what others (Mat) have to say in response.

Hopefully you weren't calling ME a crybaby! *grin*

Mat · 2 years ago

@vaspers
Sorry to take so long to come back to this thread. Interesting take - we're whiners for wanting to consider the road ahead? Yes, the printing press was a success - but why? Because the educated/literate were able to (mostly) control what was put out over the medium, which resulted in lots of value being printed onto dead trees.

Now the "democratization" of media allows anyone with a voice with unprecedented access to my attention. You seek to draw a corollary, but I beg to differ. If we don't soon succeed in building tools that will aid good content from being weeded from the chaff, I'm afraid we'll poison our collective media to the point where we no longer know where to look for quality.

"This is a Historical First: the internet, web, blogosphere, lifecasting, the whole humachine movement."

Hmm. Since you seem to use analogies so freely, I would submit that the people who developed the atomic bomb probably thought it was pretty swell thing at the time as well.

Lesson: Not all technology is a boon for society. Let's look before we leap.