I can’t tell you why it took as long for weblogs to happen as it did, except to say it had absolutely nothing to do with technology. We had every bit of technology we needed to do weblogs the day Mosaic launched the first forms-capable browser. Every single piece of it was right there. Instead, we got Geocities. Why did we get Geocities and not weblogs? We didn’t know what we were doing.
One was a bad idea, the other turns out to be a really good idea. It took a long time to figure out that people talking to one another, instead of simply uploading badly-scanned photos of their cats, would be a useful pattern. That useful pattern has churned out entire online communities of interconnected people interacting on 2.0 websites every day. The numbers are STUNNING, with Google reporting in it’s Social Media Webinar, “86 million users on social networks” with 78% over the age of 18 and the number is expected to grow to 115 Million in the next 2 years.
The evolution of 2.0 software, as talked about by Clay Shirky, has lead to a new type of communication, and as you can read from his keynotes “”A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy” it poses a big challenge for website owners and designers, bloggers, as well as a more and more “Connected” society.
You cannot completely separate technical and social issues.
Our whole society is becoming more and more plugged in, as noted in this years “future of the internet III” survey from Pew.
The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.
It’s up to us to determine what kind of actions we will choose to make. We’ve all been to a blog post where a flame war has sprouted, or just random insults fly… The question about our future is will it be the case of “Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fudgewad” as Viginia Nussey of Bruce Clay noted in her article “Let’s make intolerance intolerable“, or will we take her advice and “be a smarter, wiser, bigger person”….
One of the lessons that Clay Shirky teaches us is that owners of 2.0 sites actually can design platforms that encourgage good behavior, by adding member recognition, kharma, and a profile system. However, a site owner can’t just step back…your online community has to be engaged. So as a blogger, site owner, or moderator, you need to remain engaged in your community to keep it viable.
As users, we need to see ourselves as members of our online communities and work together to encourage a positive experience. Desphinn bad comments, thumb down knee jerk flame comments and take the time to read your comments before you post them.
4 responses so far ↓
Mike Wilton // December 19, 2008 at 4:49 pm |
I think this brings up some good points, but at the same time I think a lot of the flames and wars raged in some online communities are healthy.
If everything is unicorns and butterflies communication is not going to be interesting or engaging. The recent guest posts on my blog are related to the film and the book series Twilight. There are a number of people who hate both and a number of people who have visited my blog because of that.
As a result I have had people engage the guest writer with debate and others who just comment obscenities and move on. I have seen the obscenities, but I haven’t deleted them. Why? Because not everything in the world is butterflies and unicorns. Some things and some people are ugly, that’s just who they are.
Even real life communities have those citizens that you aren’t fond of, but regardless they are part of the community.
Should you desphinn and thumb down bad comments? Absolutely, but make sure you’re not the one being knee jerk about your reaction. Often times people make comments that seem like flame comments when really they have an underlying genuine message.
jeremypenguin // December 19, 2008 at 5:02 pm |
“Should you desphinn and thumb down bad comments? Absolutely, but make sure you’re not the one being knee jerk about your reaction.”
That’s an excellent point Mike, and an aspect that both designers of 2.0 sites and participants should consider. I know I just linked to the article, but Clay’s keynote actually referred to it to: In the late 1990′s a request to start a culture group for Tibet on a Usenet was shot down because so many Chinese users didn’t think Tibet was a seperate country, so why have a seperate culture group. It points out that there’s a balance between censorship, the tyranny of the majority, free expression and abuse of freedom that must be struck.
Allen Harper // December 29, 2008 at 6:45 pm |
You don’t happen to have the whitepage for that Webinar do you?
jeremypenguin // December 30, 2008 at 3:27 am |
Hey @MikeWilton was there too.. I didn’t see them give the link… I wasn’t able to find it from their blog either… Let me do some digging, Mike if you have it?…