Ode to Joy 2.0

Perhaps you are also disappointed. The possibilities of Internet 2.0 (basis of social web sites) were huge, but how poorly they have been used up to now! I'm not talking now about the attractiveness of web sites, the dynamic tricks and the level of interactivity. They have all improved. It is not sufficient to have a technology, you also need to have content. Removing the commercial content, the average social web content seems poor. I think many people have a similar experience. Some people never even started on Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogger and I can't blame them.

I made two observations in relation to Internet 2.0. First, what other 'peers' write, rarely seems interesting to me. Second, what I write, rarely seems interesting to my peers. Even highly educated people don't seem to be able to offer something more interesting than nice weather, time to do some gardening, and 'stupid politicians'. We are not even talking about rougher things. Internet 2.0 only seems useful to amplify mainstream thinking. What a waste!

Digging deeper, I came to the conclusion I was totally wrong. First, what my peers write, must be interesting to me because I notice I can't stop reading it. I read it, not because I like it, but because I need to know what moves them, what keeps them busy. I know this now like never before, at least for those who have the courage to stay connected with me. But I rarely reply, so they must think I'm not interested. Likewise, my peers perhaps read my writing, but rarely take the hurdle to respond, and I doubt if I would even comment myself to similar writings.

What we just observed, is actually nothing special. Internet 2.0 is just a communication medium, the object of our communication hasn't changed. We just broadcast our own daily concerns, and often fail to listen to other people's concerns. At the same time, we hope that other people will respond to our concerns, and we fear they might consider them trivial. Let us hope that the Internet 2.0 nevertheless shows some positive effect on bringing people together. What other purpose should it serve?