7 concerns about the web in 2008

January 21, 2008

Frequent readers know I am quite enthusiastic about the social web, its potentials and cultural impact. Especially when it comes to knowledge sharing and information and communication technologies for development. However, I also have concerns and see obstacles about the participative web — its development and its divide. So as a start of 2008, I will try not to add predictions, instead some challenges.

1. Exclusion
Connectivity is not only about access but also being able to use the web with all its potentials. To express oneself with social media and to engage in social networks. The social web has a philosophy of openness and sharing, but social networks often have typical exclusive patterns. Getting the right information through feeds does not make you more inclusive. The nowadays web is more participative than ever before, but still strives along lines of exclusion. Exclusion is around having instant access, and being from the western hemisphere, having a better education and getting more attention. The front-runners are far ahead of normal internet users. My concern is that “those already rich in knowledge, information and connections may just get richer” (Charles Leadbeater).

2. Complexity
The social web opens the door for participation, but simultaneously it widens the gap between insiders and outsiders. Although the web is getting easier — just 3 clicks to a blog — the barrier for entry is still high. Not everybody is as well connected, experienced and qualified to deal with all these tools and opportunities. To understand blogs, wikis, feeds and social bookmarking takes time. I taught a relative of mine the other day the first steps on how to use the Internet and realized once again how complex the web has got. There are so many tools but so little explanation. The plain in English videos are a rarity.

3. Orientation
As great as folksonomies are and as smart as the wisdom of crowd is, it still does not give us sufficient orientation in the world wide web. The delicious startpage will make you think the web is about programmers, but what does it tell an internet newbie? To find relevant information can still be a difficult task or even within the social web takes time and resources. Social bookmarking and blogs are amazing sources of information, however, you have to find them or have the know-how to grasp their potential. Web2.0 got much more user-friendly, but a lot more has to be done to explain the opportunity for everybody. For some people, web2.0 made the web even more complex because the voices of many do not necessarily give orientation.

4. Many voices
The number of blogs is growing every day and social networks attract many new members, but there is hardly any two-way-conversation on most blogs. Millions of blogs do not have comments, thousands of facebook groups have soon after they started lost their life. The many voices often do not get as many responses. Especially when the web is used to promote social change, it is questionable to which extent this can be done over the web. Often, great stories in blogs are not read because nobody links to them. The social web has its own competition over attention and this easily will forget Kenya, Let’s Talk Scoble-gate!

5. Speed
The speed of development is breathtaking and hardly to follow. Only a minority keep up the pace. A bit more than ten years ago the only digital presence I had was on an answering machine. Nowadays new gadgets, tools and opportunities fly up daily and there is hardly any time to try the older ones, because they are bypassed by “better” solutions. That is the case of most blog posts which receive no attention after a few days. It is hardly possible to follow the speed of innovation and question whether this is necessary. Alone wikis and blogs bear a great potential and have started to be used in different contexts.

6. Information overload
From my work, I look on web2.0 from a knowledge management perspective. Blogs and wikis are surely no miracle because they simply cannot supply a real good face to face meeting and a creative brainstorming in a group. As a recent study tells that 2008 is the year of the information overload. Emails are seen as a key obstacle, but implementing blogs and wikis can also lead to the similar result. First comes the need and then maybe a web solution, but only one really fits best what is already there. Web2.0 tools can become a time waster and too little is asked about the benefit of them. Or as Bev Trayner wrote in her post, maybe less is better when it comes to online tools.

7. Filter
I am amazed about the information power gain through feeds and getting more and more decent quality information out of the web. But it is still not easy to filter, or it takes a lot of time to get qualitative information. It is still difficult to find relevance in the social web, so I can click through a world of wisdom. Language is a key challenge and also the dominance of the masses like in the old media.

From A-Z to Organization2.0: U – Usability = Higher Motiviation A B C D E
The limits to filter feeds and gain more relevance For the pa

Tags: culture, language, network, openness, participation, web2.0 ICT4D, knowledge management

If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to this blog.
RSS or Email

Comments

7 Comments so far

Ignatia/Inge de Waard on January 22, 2008 10:05 am
A great post with lots of thought provoking content.

The thing I was wondering about is if the web won’t render the divide more global on a regional level. What if more and more people get into social media on a global scale? The chances are that the digital divide will be global in a vertical sense. I mean that all over the world the gap will be found based on economical, literacy … factors. I agree that that is the case now within the already digital developed countries, but once countries in development will have taken their place in the digital spectrum, I still believe the digital gap will remain as you say.
Won’t that fact create a new kind of feudal cast system but on a global scale?

If you take into account all the qualities you must have as an individual to stay on top (or nearby) of new technological developments and the fact that a percentage of people will never be able to grasp all these qualities, you could project the future as a divide as well. I am afraid that these new technologies again exclude people as you say in your post.

The ever increasing speed, in which things are developed, taken in, pushed aside… also incorporate dangers on a research level. What if technological developments overpower the research they should get to enable to see whether something is sound or not? What happens if the impact of developments completely overshadows the research into these impacts?

And indeed, if there are too many voices, the individual sounds might no longer be heard although they might count. If we all learn to talk on our own (blogs), will we still be able to listen? Won’t we get the (increasing) idea that our own opinion is the best argumented one and the others should revere our opinion as such?

As for the political or other engagement: I think there is only a limited amount of people that want to engage in a political debate or that want to change the world for the better with content input. And (unfortunately) only the people who are connected to a certain topic will be interested in it. As long as something does not affect us, chances are big that we will not be bothered.
Bev Trayner on January 22, 2008 10:50 am
I think, as with most things, change will come very very slowly. And our job is just to keep chipping away.
Mark Wiseman on January 24, 2008 6:52 am
I think your last point about filtering is the key. Feeds, social bookmarking and online communities all help us sort the masses of online information but still it is not enough.
I think probably the answer will come in some form of collaborative search supported by groups of people with similar interests.
In some way the search need to produce returns that are highly relevant and have high validity. Excluding all the chaff.
Nice post thanks
Wendell Dryden on January 27, 2008 4:14 pm
The “Exclusion” issue is the one that resonated most with me – partly because I sometimes feel excluded by both my lack of know-how and my low-income hardware, and partly because my community literacy work keeps me aware of issues about access and exclusion.

The “Many Voices” concern… I have an image of two people trying to talk above the roar of a river that separates them. To talk across or against the stream can seem nearly impossible. Though, surely, it is more possible now than it ever has been in the past 40 years(?).
ckreutz on January 29, 2008 2:31 pm
@Ignatia thanks for your interesting reflections. Yes I imagine the participative web has to be seen on a global level, where a growing number of users can join social media. So all these opportunities and obstacles are very different from country to country.
For example activists in Egypt are far better connected then many elderly people in middle Europe. I wonder whether a vertical scale for connectivity could be defined to address all the dimensions of exclusions. Will think about that.
For the research aspect I believe it is similar to knowledge management. It is great to have all this information sources available and to connect to people worldwide but that does not necessarily bring me faster, better or more profound results. I believe the web2, however will change knowledge management and research very much. The wikinomics book describes it very concrete.

@Mark Wiseman
Yes indeed filter will be key but unfortunately there are not yet strong enough to ease the information overload.

@Wendell Dryden
Glad you like the post and I really like your metaphor. Would be very interesting to hear your experiences from your community work.
Joitske on January 29, 2008 3:44 pm
Great post Christian, comes just at the time I was thinking about the limits of online communication to contribute to development (I’ve never thought the contribution would be big by the way). As in Kenya, when things also boil down to access to resources and influence, I don’t think being connected helps.
Stephan on August 11, 2008 2:02 pm
Great post.

I guess until someone comes up with the perfect algorithm to give us the right piece of information when we need it (will that ever come?), we will rely on people like you as our coaches and filters. Interacting with trusted people rather than a machine is nicer anyway.