Web 3.0: Good riddance to the wisdom of crowds?
Just because we can now access any news source from anywhere in the world doesn't mean we will. Just because we can set up RSS feeds to deliver the latest information specific to our interests doesn't mean we trust any of it. And just because anyone can post on the web, this doesn't necessarily mean media and communication have become more democratic. After a decade under seige, are we beginning to see the expert to fight back? Is the conventional wisdom that a broader marketplace of ideas will generate 'better' information under threat? Writing in the Guardian Media section this week, Anthony Lilley ponders whether it is sometimes useful, when you want to learn about something, to go to someone with expertise. Is this what Web 3.0 will be all about? He refers to a comment by Jason Calacanis: "Web 3.0 is the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform. Web 3.0 throttles the 'wisdom of the crowds' from turning into the 'madness of the mobs' we've seen all too often, by balancing it with a respect of experts."
Is it not the case that audiences want some enduring news source they can trust, rather than a squillion partial voices? In the UK, the majority of audiences rely on a single primary source, the BBC, even today. In a decade's time, surely key individuals (trusted anchors and columnists) will remain ‘optimal passage points’ for news, but these may not be the same key individuals as was the case in the twentieth broadcasting era. How will the balance between participatory media and credible expertise unfold? Can the wisdom of crowds and the judgement of the few be reconciled in new ways?
Ben O'Loughlin
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Reader Comments (2)
Interesting. Calacanis and others see business models in expertise combined with heavily filtered user generated content. The new search engine, Mahalo, is a good example of that. Web 2.0 also raises some interesting issues around ownership, control and profit. With some user generated sites potentially making huge sums for the founders, in the form of mergers and acquisitions or even IPOs (Facebook possibly), a big question is who actually creates the value for these sites. The armies of online volunteers labour to create the content, without which the sites would have little of worth. But the site 'owners', who essentially just own a brand, reap the rewards. We may start to see some user communities start to rebel against this model.
This is very interesting ! Infact, earlier this year , at the Salzburg Seminar on "New Information Networks:Challenges and Opportunities for Business, Governments and the Media", there had been much discussion on Intellectual Property Rights and motives of profit and power sharing vis-a-vis the emergence of platforms like the Web 2.0; and while we saw the relevance; some of us remained engaged with this idea of how there COULD be some day very soon a kind of "a return to the roost..."
With public domains expanding seamlessly, a sharper role of regulatory mechanisms is envisaged..., and while one will not really see "knowledge sharing "through these technology enabled platforms recede,it certainly seems almost inevitable that the prominence of expertise will re-emerge and eventually remain sustained. Just as we always theorise for Communication as a concept-CREDIBILITY of the source/s remaims one of the most significant crieria for effective manifestation at any level on any issue...
Am excited to learn of the beginnings of the Web 3.0 concept and will try to remain in the loop of more articulate developments on this.