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Hello,
I’ve been involved in internet-based discussion since the mid-1990s, using newsgroups (also known as USENET) and email-based mailing lists. More recently I’ve been exploring the technological side of Web 2.0 – like DOM scripting and AJAX.
I’m very skeptical about some of the wilder Web 2.0 premises and promises, here are some (possibly false) claims which I may or may not have made:
- Blogs are like USENET with pretty oven gloves on
- Subscribing to RSS feeds is an invitation to more nagging in your life
- Glossy rectangles with round corners does not equal Web 2.0
… but I’m very interested in some of the social and political aspects of this lark:
- Are we getting more democracy, or just more bread and circuses?
- Can we be identified (e.g. for ecommerce) without revealing our identity?
- What are the ethical dimensions of being ‘friends’ (e.g. via facebook) with students, or with management?
- “If we have Nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear”? – Don’t we have a right to secrets? I might want to “hide” the fact I bought a present for my girlfriend, until her actual birthday.
- Is file-sharing stealing? Stealing is legally defined as “taking with the intent to deprive”. Who is being deprived of what?
- If amateur content produced under the creative commons license is ‘good enough’ to compete with professionally produced, copyright-protected content, how does e.g. a professional photographer make a living?
- Mozilla gets most of its money from Google. Is Firefox really a grassroots product?
And so on… Get me an espresso and slip me a paradox, and I’ll discuss for hours.
