BooksPosted by Tim on September 28, 2007 at 1:08 PM
I stumbled across this clip at the Penguin Blog today. It is the best summation of what Web 2.0 is and how it is changing our lives. It’s the coolest thing that I’ve seen all day. Cooler than Dylan even. Put watching this on your to do list.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Wow.
Cool AND awe inspiring.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
I found it frightening and dispiriting. Towards the end, we see the phrase “the machine is us” tapped out. Well, if the machine is us, aren’t we the machine? As Marshall McLuhan used to say, “First man makes the tool and then the tool makes man.”
It would take a book-length comment to touch on the very many levels of this, but let me touch on one or two.
First, as McLuhan showed, technology not only adds to us, technology takes away. This video concentrated on what this technology adds, but omits what it takes away. We have to stop and think about this.
Writing with a pen or pencil and a piece of paper encourages certain ways of thinking. It works the mind and the brain in certain ways. It encourages logical thought and structured reasoning. With hypertext, reasoning becomes a series of links and associations. Is this for the better?
September 28th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Herm: Good point. I think the makers of the clip leave the question open with the list of things that we need to re-think. I think the beauty of this clip is explaining what Web 2.0 means in an easy to grasp way.
I know that I write in a more organized fashion if I at least outline my thoughts with a pen and paper.
However, were it not for the internet and the connectivity it provides, I wouldn’t have had many of the thoughtful (and some not so thoughtful) book conversations that I’ve enjoyed here.
September 29th, 2007 at 12:53 am
Fascinating video. And yes, I agree that it is also a tad frightening. But there’s no turning back now, is there? Herman’s concerns about the ways of thinking when using pen or pencil and the potential decrease in that manner of thinking is certainly food for thought. I reminded me of the illuminators’ reaction to printing, when it first arrived on the scene. Though I’m sure calligraphers and illuminators were not worried about how people’s thought processes would change with the introduction of mass printing of books – they were concerned with the loss of their jobs. Though of course society did change after that, and how people thought and communicated changed, too. Less use of the oral method of communication, the spreading of information on print. Is this just the next step? How will the children of the next generation think differently from us?
September 29th, 2007 at 10:24 am
I agree that the medium ultimately affects what is created. A website is a highly-linked piece of writing often showing where the blogger’s ideas came from and the links invite you to follow in the direction of the writer’s thinking.
All ideas begin somewhere though, and I think that these web 2.0 ideas still began with a pen and paper. A computer is part of the process, not the process itself.
When I am designing something, be it a database/webpage or graphic, I begin on paper and move my more final ideas to the screen. For me the pen and paper is an extemely solid part of the modern world. It is the foundation of a creative process.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:31 am
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October 24th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
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