Blogs are boring

My Scoble/Gilmor/Hafner Cybersalon panel on Sunday was comprehensively reported by Renee Blodgett, Scott Rosenberg Robert Scoble and Dan Farber.

So what did I learn from the debate? I learned that blogs are boring. I learned that we need to get beyond arguing about blogs versus the New York Times. My book is about the future of music, movies, books, privacy, identity, morality, information, knowledge and politics in the digital age. But all anyone wants to discuss, it seems, is the well trodden terrain of bloggers versus traditional news reporters.

Enough of blogs and enough of bloggers! It's bad enough that there are 70 million of them out there, littering the Internet with fast breaking news about what their authors ate for breakfast. But blogs are just one piece in the digital media revolution. They are boring to write (yawn), boring to read (yawn) and boring to discuss (yawn).

What I really want to discuss is the impact of Web 2.0 on truth, education, memory and power. I want debate the increasingly Orwellian role of Google in our information economy. I want to talk about the way in which the Internet has unleashed a plague of pornography, gambling and intellectual dishonesty on our youth. I want to discuss the future of the book. I want to imagine the future of knowledge when, to quote David Weinberger, everything is miscellaneous.

Anyone want to join me in this discussion?

Comments

[Stephen Smoliar]

Certainly, I want to join the discussion? Thank you for letting me know that I did not miss anything by deciding to hear the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra on Sunday! As far as your boredom is concerned, it is not for nothing that I called my own blog "The Rehearsal Studio." I need a place where I can practice putting my ideas into words before engaging them in more "serious" writing (whatever that may happen to be). However, rehearsals ARE boring to anyone who is not actively involved in the process (and, on the basis of my experience as an amateur musician, they can also be boring to those who ARE involved)!

You know, the trouble with reading about "the history of ideas" is that you end up reading about the ideas and the paths leading to them. All the dead-end paths are excised from the historical account. It's the same as reading mathematics: You read the proof of the theorem rather than the tortuous and frustrating process that eventually resulted in that proof.

So, if the Internet is the new "foundry" or "crucible" for new ideas, it stands as a corollary to the preceding paragraph that the whole Internet is boring! The interest comes only from evangelists and historians (if there ARE any) and the filters they apply. This then leads to another corollary: Guess what? LIFE is boring (at least most of it).

So much for my Eno strategy:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2007/05/hanging-tough-pays-off.html

Coming "part way back" (as Eno puts it), I suggest a hermeneutic stance. Blogs, the Internet, and life itself are what you "read" them to be. The interesting is always there to be mined, but it will not shoot up of its own accord like the gusher in GIANT. It is the product of our ability to react to what we encounter both cognitively and emotionally (without playing games about sides of the brain). As Suzuki used to teach at Columbia, with the right kind of examination and over enough time, the boring can become interesting!

As to what you WANT to discuss, where do you want to begin? I am more like the hedgehog that would prefer to know one thing well; but that does not prevent the "thing" from being a big one! Follow the link to my blog and check out the "consequences" tag. The current count is 87, which amounts to a lot of hedgehogging! I would not be surprised if all of your own questions come down to questions of consequences, so that may be a good way to begin!

[Ryan Shaw]

Hopefully we can have that discussion on July 13th at YRB. Please promise not to talk about bloggers.

[Andrew Keen]

Ryan -- that's a promise. How about I get fined $50 every time I mention the word blog at the Yahoo event (goes to charity of your choice)?

I only perform when there is a financial (dis)incentive...

ak

[Andrew Keen]

Stephen -- Yes, you made a wise decision. What was the youth orchestra playing?

Should we really publish our rehearsal notes? After all, most of our finished work is pretty boring, so the rough drafts are likely to be really really boring.

Life is boring? Don't agree. Mine isn't (at least to me). Only boring bit is when I discussing blogs. And when I have to fill out forms.

[Suz]

Andrew, we're getting dangerously close to a fifty buck fine here. The 'B' Word has cropped up three times already. Can your tea & buns fund afford such wild excesses?

The hermeneutic concept of the internet seems worth exploring, Stephen, although the hedgehog reference escapes me. If Democritus was the father of the A-Bomb, where might a dalliance with Hermes take us?

The point about the internet being a place to practice writing skills is a good one. Should we 'publish' our scratchy pieces for 150 million people to read before we move onto the 'proper' media, or is the proper media dead?

But, and it's a but with a small 'B', even the best writing is often improved by editing, which usually works on the less is more principle.

Perhaps Google Apps will develop the 'virtual editor' complete with green eyeshade.

Google VE would strip out conjunction-itis and personal pronouns, blue-pencil first-person active-voice writing, and flag up inadvertent solipsisms.

Would it catch on?

You read it here, first.

regards

[Andrew Keen]

Suz -- Google VE isn't ambitious enough. Since Eric Schmidt wants to know us so intimately, its all-knowing algorithm should be able to automatically author a rough draft of our thoughts which we can automatically post on our b....

for more on the Chauncey Gardiner of Mountain View, see my ZDNet thing:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/keen/?p=145

[trouble]

You don't find it ironic that a blogger finds blogs boring?

Ummmm yeah.

[eric goldstein]

very interesting post. just read your blog for the first time...won't be the last. looking forward to reading your book. wish i had something interesting to add, but just thinking over what you wrote.

[Philip Hage]

Blogs are especially boring when the blogger uses light blue type on white. Can't see it.

[Andrew Keen]

Philip -- lol. Let me talk to my technical team about darkening things up.

[Andrew Keen]

Trouble -- yes, that is ironic. And it's also ironic that, given the troubling nature of anonymous posts on the web, you should call yourself Trouble. I'm troubled by this irony.

Reveal yourself -- you troubled soul!

[Stephen Smoliar]

It looks like I need to clear up a few statements of fact, and I shall try to do so without being boring!

Andrew, the "main event" of the Youth Orchestra concert was Beethoven's ninth, with contributions from the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (second performance under their new director) and four soloists, all of whom are Adler Fellows at the San Francisco Opera. In a time when we are always looking for "new" readings of the classics, this one was pretty bread-and-butter. However, everyone was up to the task, which made it a lot of fun.

My personal reason for going, however, was that the Beethoven was preceded by Colin McPhee's "Tabuh-Tabuhan," an intriguing exercise in Balinese music heard through Western ears. (McPhee spent seven years in Bali.) This is an awesome mass of polyrhythms that required six percussion players, two pianists, and one celesta, in addition to a REALLY full orchestra (with two harps). I learned about this piece from an old Howard Hanson recording and heard the Singapore Symphony make a total hash of it when I was living there. I very much wanted to hear a better performance. I got my wish, but there is so much complexity that I doubt that any ensemble can really deliver everything on the page to the ear of the listener.

Suz, the hedgehog reference is from Archilochus but was made famous by Isaiah Berlin: "The fox knows many thing, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Also, my SHORTER OXFORD etymology of "hermeneutic" makes no reference of (either) Hermes. I think you are confusing it with HERMETIC (i.e. occult) thinking!

More substantive is the question of whether we should "rehearse" in front of 150 million people. Frankly, I would be surprised if that many people came into my "Rehearsal Studio." However, I agree that editing is important; and I see the comments I receive as guidance in editing.

On the other hand I think that Andrew seems to have tripped over my rhetoric about boredom, whether it applies to the rehearsal process of life itself. When I came "part way back" from my extreme statement, I asserted that boredom is in the mind of the reader/viewer. Scholars find rough drafts and notes absolutely fascinating; and, at a more pedestrian level, look at the way DVD publishers can sell "director's cut" versions.

Can we have a "virtual editor?" I agree with Andrew that we cannot expect one from Google. A good editor lives in all three disciplines of the TRIVIUM: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The world of Google is, at best, a world of logic (and not a particularly good one). If they knew more about grammar and rhetoric, they could probably return better results; but I would doubt that this is part of the long-range strategy!

[Suz]

Stephen, thank you for the delightful reminder about the hedgehog, I've made a note to read less science and more classics.

The connection between Hermes and Hermeneutics is touched on here and elsewhere:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics

but not in my rather stodgy reference DVD; 2007 Encyclopedia Britannica.

From a journalism viewpoint, 'editing' means not only removal, but addition.

Shaping a piece through direction via the editorial brief and suggesting ways in which the submitted work might be improved are vital editorial skills.

The future of the book, (from Andrew's original post), is certain. The Internet is ephemeral, a book is not.

Works on the Internet are not obliged to post copies in the British Library by law, all books published in the UK are. Is this the same for the USA and the Library of Congress?

In a hundred years time it will still be possible to get a copy of
Andrew's book from a library, even if it has been digitised and stored in quantum memory, but this dialogue and 71 million others will certainly have vanished into thin air.

I agree with you about Google. The Googleplex is driven by advertising revenue, not by the welfare of Internet users. Google-phobia is growing though, perhaps there'll be a renaissance of common sense for Net users.

regards

[Stephen Smoliar]

Suz, I usually like to bash Wikipedia as much as I bash Google; but, in this case, their Hermes connection is confirmed in THE OXFORD COMPANION TO PHILOSOPHY (although I know nothing about the Mr. Inwood who wrote the article, other than his affiliation with Oxford's Trinity College)!

Writing from my own editorial experience, I agree with what you say about addition. One of the reasons I raised rhetoric, though, is that I would often ask my author's to provide the reader with a "road-map" before undertaking a lengthy exposition. A clear sense of structure does wonders for a text (which is what is addressed by the ERKLAREN side of hermeneutics)! Even when you write, the highest priority should be given to the reader!

I do not think the Library of Congress is subject to the same "preservation" law as the British Library. Given what has happened to their budget lately, this is probably just as well (for them, not for authors)!

As far as these dialogues are concerned, Andrew took on the question of Socratic dialogue on the Internet on May 1:

http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/the_great_seduction/2007/05/rebutted_at_las.html

The topic of editing came up over that post, too, but it a somewhat different context. My own take had to do with the matter of the "literary artifact." The problem arises with literary artifacts that never get preserved (possibly because they never appear as a bounded book).

[Nick]

Hello,

This may not be the right entry to comment on but I just read a report on your forthcoming book and what can I say, thank goodness somebody's finally spotted the bleedin' obvious and stuck down some coherent thoughts about it.

As vague personal example to the sorry state of Web 2.0...I quite like creative writing (as do many others) and so got myself onto MySpace the other week, assuming that as it was such a big thing it would be an interesting place to meet like minded people. Good grief, a bunch of teenagers spouting angsty rubbish whilst they're identically-minded cronies moronically gave them undiluted praise. What happened to the basic tenets of critical appraisal?

It seems that online people either fall into 2 categories - the outrageously rude or the outrageously polite who are afraid of being seen as the former. The emotional blankness of communicating online seems to destroy people's ability to communicate. There's some pub-quiz statistic that states spoken words constitute only a minority of communication, the rest being made up of body language, inflections, stresses, insinuations, signings...so on and so forth.

The internet kills this and all we're left with is largely drivel. Yes, people are talking more but quantity does not necessarily equal quality and the end product of MySpace, YouTube etc is depressingly predictable and boring.

And as a shameless plug, if you'd like to see something different, check out www.myspace.com/writenick

Nick

[Suz]

As an aside, somebody reminded me of a Keen connection in the Commander Keen video games of the 90's. Is Andrew going to rescue us from the Bloogs?

'Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter!

When Keen's babysitter Molly is abducted by the Bloogs, Keen must come to her rescue by fighting his way through the inhabitants of the planet Fribbulus Xax. '

Are most bloogs fribbulus? The consensus seems to be that they are.

[trouble]

Not to be troublesome, but my comment was NOT anonymous. I am indeed the author of the blog that was linked to my comment, which also included my e-mail address.

;)

[Stephen Smoliar]

I decided to use my own blog to elaborate on those points about editing that I raised:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2007/05/on-practice-of-editing.html

All are welcome.

[Ian Johnson, Out Now]

I am not so sure that in the area of specialist knowledge, or even simply reliable knowledge this current trend is the future though. Most major schools no longer trust Wikipedia as a reference source for credible information, for example.

The open model is flawed if the topics being written about require at least some level of working knowledge of the topic.

The "mass amateurization of journalism" is a dangerous thing for all where the quality of the information being presented lacks that which has been the hallmark of serious journalistic endeavour since its beginnings - credibility.

When being interviewed by journalists, I am always assessing how well they have understood our business and the targeted niche market we operate in - the gay consumer market. The ones that give me the greatest confidence are the ones that have undertaken proper research of our market to at least some extent. The ones that I get nervous about are the ones whose research is clearly minimal or based on some online falsehoods about what 'gay marketing' is about.

Personally I think the future is going to see growing moves into 2.0+ technologies by name brand media that the consumer can trust and rely upon. The rest will become the equivalent of the global village square. Good for a gossip, or even just like 'Speakers Corner' in olde England. Journalism grew out of such spaces and I think it will evolve to become Journalism 2.0 and adapt with the information delivery platforms.

I actually think the imperative for, and the functions of, professional journalism become stronger than ever in an information-drenched world.

I fully support your concerns of an Orwellian world where the risk is the big brother we each lazily embrace by trusting unthinkingly the agendas lying behind sites like google and wikipedia. You are our topic today on our http://www.GayMarketNews.com updates site at this link: http://www.gaymarketnews.com/2007/05/cult-of-amateur-internet-culture.html .

I think in relation to journalism we are perhaps witnessing the pangs of a transition of change to new media systems, not the death in society of the need for professional journalism which can deliver the most important thing the cult of the amateur never can - credibility.

It may be the professional journalists and their craft that will save us from ourselves.

[Stephen Smoliar]

Ian, I embrace your conclusion about the role of professional journalists; but I fear they are more likely to be the tree falling in the forest that no one hears, whether the content matter is the breaking story, editorial analysis, or (my own turn) review. I can only think about my favorite quote from Walt Kelly's POGO: "I'd write a nasty letter to the mayor, if he could only read!" Much as admire that mission of journalism "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable," I feel that the comfortable just look elsewhere and the afflicted are too busy being afflicted.

[David]

Your oeverexposed group of people used to drive your conclusion demonstrates your problem. It's a good thing you are going on a book tour you can get away from San Fracisco and the smae people all the time.

It's time for you to venture out and read some new blogs.

[David Sehat]

The blog issue does put a fine point on one area of critical concern. Many academics are turning to blogs as a way to reach broader publics. Your work raises the significant question of whether they are trading in their authority as experts to join the amateurish scrum of the internet. I'm not convinced that such a trade-off necessarily occurs when academics begin to blog, but it is certainly a question to ponder.

David Sehat