“For what is this much-trumpeted social networking but an escape back into that world of the closed online service of 15 or 20 years ago? Is it part of some deep human instinct that we take an organism as open and wild and free as the internet, and wish then to divide it into citadels, into closed-border republics and independent city states? The systole and diastole of history has us opening and closing like a flower: escaping our fortresses and enclosures into the open fields, and then building hedges, villages and cities in which to imprison ourselves again before repeating the process once more. The internet seems to be following this pattern.” ~ Stephen Fry in The Guardian
What do you think about Facebook & the social networks that you belong to? Do we like our walled gardens?
(Thanks to Chris for the heads up.)
I couldn’t disagree more with this quote. The conventional internet is not an open community, it is very much one-sided.
The social web does not create barriers it provides tools for breaking down barriers.
I guess I don’t get it?
Roger, something tells me you get it. You get EVERYTHING!
I think the promise of the web is to take down the barriers. For example, RSS makes it easier to move information from place to place.
But I see the opposite of that happening now, particularly with Facebook and even Ning (which I really enjoy). Most of the Ning communities I’m involved with are closed. They’re not open to the public. Facebook is becoming a kind of roach motel … a place where stuff goes in but it never comes out. And the problem is that these are the places where students are going. I wish I could see where all this is going.