Notes on The Coffee Shop and The Blogosphere
January 27th, 2008Lee Siegle sits down with the WSJ.com to talk about his new book Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. My opinion is that this book serves as a controversy point to sell some copies. I don’t think he arguments that interacting in the blogosphere is like interacting with ghosts. The Internet serves as a portal to interact with Chinese, Welsh, Norwegian, South African and so on. Though there my not be the personal connection that a coffee shop conversation lends, but the diversity of conversation is unmatchable. So what if we don’t ever see these people, does that make their comments or ideas different? The book seems like it might be an interesting read, but I am worried about its merit.
Siegle also makes predictions for the web in 5 years. He asserts that the web behaves synchronously with the economy. That is a capitalistic view that I totally disagree with. Whether people have money or not, or the economy is booming or not, the web reacts to its own culture, not such significant elements of the “physical world” as the economy.
Take a look at the Mashable.com article on the interview.
January 30th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I agree with Siegel’s idea that the economy and the internet are very closely related. I think as the economy declines people will be more fearful of the internet, as it doesn’t seem as tangible and solid as personal interaction. People will want to seek refuge in those things around them that seem more controllable. Or maybe I’m wrong, maybe people will seek refuge in internet pornography and mindlessgames.com in order to tune out the reality that is a declining economy.
January 31st, 2008 at 12:34 am
Claiming that the internet and economy are “closely related” is more a matter of opinion than a fact. Blogging on the internet began when people had stuff they wanted to say. When they wanted to interact with other human beings and talk about issues that were important to them. As our economy slows down and the fear or recession enters peoples minds, i have to think that internet usage will be virtually unaffected. A down turning economy is only going to give bloggers more stuff to talk about. More issues to debate. I dont think people will cancel there internet subscription, stop emailing or stop blogging. The younger generation relys very heavily on the internet for news and updates about out daily lives. News is not going away and the desire to learn about current events isnt going away. I think people are going to realize that its cheaper to read the times on the internet than to pay for them every day. I dont know of any study that shows the correlation between our economy and internet usage, if there is, i would love to see it. Internet is an escape for lots of people and like Brock said, i think people will seek refuge and use it for mindless activities.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Your site just got Cyberspace Rockstar approved! Umm, so where is the contact info on this site? E-mail me. I have a question about PackMapr.