Comments on: Weinberger vs. Keen @ Supernova

By: Enterprise and the cult of the amateur « AccMan

Enterprise and the cult of the amateur « AccMan — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 03:33:24 +0000

[...] At present I’m in what Gartner might call the trough of disillusionment. While my enthusiasm for all things Web 2.0 is as strong as ever, I am seeing disturbing signs about how Web 2.0 is presented that leave me deeply troubled. Much of this stems from my watching a video recording of a debate between David Weinberger and Andrew Keen which was recorded at Supernova. It was riveting viewing at a number of levels. I have since replayed portions to help gain more insights into the discussion and it has led me on a thought stream that’s taking a different course to that of many other commenters. For those who want a potted take, there is a very good ‘live blogged’ commentary at Social Media Club. For reference, David is the author of Everything is Miscellaneous (he was also co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto) while Andrew authored The Cult of the Amateur. [...]

By: » Skeptical reader: Andrew Keen’s big ideas | Rational rants | ZDNet.com

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 06:53:45 +0000

[...] On the last afternoon of the Supernova Conference, David Weinberger and fellow ZD Net blogger Andrew Keen, debated the question, “Disorder: Feature or Bug?” Unfortunately, they didn’t actually manage to demonstrate a definitive answer to that question, because all we learned was that they disagreed. Chris Heuer took notes. [...]

By: Experts and social media « Green Tea Ice Cream

Experts and social media « Green Tea Ice Cream — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:23:21 +0000

[...] Experts and social media Published June 27th, 2007 Danah Boyd , social media , expertise , experts , Web 2.0 I’ve been reading Stephanie Booth’s summary of an exchange of views between David Weinberger and Andrew Keen at Supernova 2007 (there’s another account over at Social Media Club) in the context of the fall-out from Danah Boyd’s (inadvertent) media bomb . The reaction to Danah’s essay in the newspapers suggests that mainstream media are still very fond of privileging expert, authoritative discourse - when it suits them (i.e. when it gives an opportunity to discuss/reinforce class divisions, say “Oooh, it’s bad this Noo Medjaa stuff, isn’t it?” and so on…). Three days previously, Weinberger and Keen were debating the “…value of authority in a connected world…” and it’s fascinating how much of the attention given to Danah’s post accrued from her status as an academic (and how much hatred that this seems to have generated on the comments on her most recent post). [...]

By: Bill Ross

Bill Ross — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 04:26:22 +0000

Hi, Chris,
Nope, that’s all there was to it. Actually not an issue of mainstream vs. independent media, didn’t mean to be misleading there.
I just picked up on Keen’s remark you quoted to make a favorite point, that you can’t feature exclusively user-generated content (or for that matter the stream-of-consciousness reporting of experienced observers,) without some “polishing,” editing, oversight.
I wss just editing a 100-page workbook (for print) that goes with a course in team brainstorming, creative problem solving, etc., for a training compamy I do work for. I had basically finished the editing, but told the guy I wanted to hold on to it overnight for one more look in the morning.
Sure enough, the next day I found some little glitch on almost every page, because when your brain is in creative mode it naturally tends to zoom over the details. We then need to let the other, more fastidious parts of the brain get their crack at it, so that we wind up with a complete work.
Hey, I’ve enjoyed the conversation with you about this.
Regards,
Bill

By: Chris Heuer

Chris Heuer — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:20:46 +0000

Thanks Bill - have fixed the typos and misspelling. Was there something else you wanted to point out that I need to correct with your opening line? I think I am missing something there…

One other point - isn’t the cost of the editing more often shared with the audience? together as co-creators of the story and the truth that it told? I mean, you did, in a very real sense, edit this article by identifying mistakes that could be corrected. I don’t think mainstream media would be so quick to change such things and of course, in an analog world, they couldn’t effectively do it, or readily admit it in an overly obvious way as I am doing here…

By: Bill Ross

Bill Ross — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 16:50:07 +0000

Chris,
As a perfect illustration of this quote of Andrew Keen’s in the piece:
>> “it is the job of mainstream media to find raw talent and polish it up”

…you might want to go back and do a copy edit of your live-blogged post. As of this writing, strange, misshapen artifacts lurk within, such as, “ologarchy,” “acknolwedges,” and “deomcratization.”

Obviously just slips of the finger and still recognizable words, but just a couple of those have the power to distract a reader enough to lure them into taking off. It causes the reader to subconsciously question the intelligence of the author, blowing the equivalent of the theatrical “willing suspension of disbelief.” (Not that I’m entertaining such judgmental thoughts, mind you — why else would I take the time to write you about it?)

Here’s the main point: user-generated content is not free, because you’ve got to have editorial oversight, and that still means humans who are hopefully(!) being paid a living wage to make the user’s stuff Ready For Primetime.

This is a significant but underreported issue with building social media based sites.
- Bill Ross