The Wall Street Journal (paid sub. req.) invited the authors of two high-profile books on the Web to an email debate. In one corner, Andrew Keen, who wrote The Cult of the Amateur, argues the Web has become overwhelmed with useless noise. David Weinberger, author of Everything is Miscellaneous, argues that Web 2.0 tools let users filter out irrelevant (or inaccurate) information.
Go David Go!
We are amateurs on the Web, although there’s plenty of room for professionals as well. But we are not replicating the mainstream media. We’re building something new. We’re doing it together. Its fundamental elements are not bricks of content but the mortar of links, and links are connections of meaning and involvement. We’re creating an infrastructure of meaning, miscellaneous but dripping with potential for finding and understanding what matters to us. We’re building this for one another. We’re doing it by-and-large for free, for the love of it, and for the joy of creating with others. That makes us amateurs. And that’s also what makes the Web our culture’s hope.
For more from David Weinberger on this subject, visit EverythingisMiscellaneous.com.