Digitivity and Andrew Keen

Andrew Keen - the Cult of the Amateur and the Great Digital Seduction

• I used to be a believer. You are all believers. I can see that you believe the nonsense out there. I’m here to hand down some wisdom you will not get online. I used to be like all of you. I founded audiocafe. I wanted the money from the VCs and I wanted their approval.
• I still think the web is a platform for high quality content. I had an epiphany. I went from being a believer to a sceptic. I here to try and convince you into this camp, the camp that will soon be the majority.
• In 2004, I went to FOO camp. (Quotes from book (only paraphrased) After this, I left he camp as an unbeliever. O’reilly and his silicon valley acolytes..a mix of grey hippies, new media entrepeneurs and tech geeks…United with an opposition of traditional media….web 2.0 was going to change everything…only one word…democratisation…everything was going to be democratised…big media…big everything…there was an emptiness at the heart of the conversation..the promise of using technology to bring more culture to the masses was drowned out by the call to democratise…everyone to create…this was the law of digital darwinism..the loudest digital voices will prevail."
• A the heart of web2.0 is an historical coincidence - an interesting moment of history. He doesn’t care about technology, he does not know how to use it. Web2.0 reflects some profound changes about authority, ethics, public space. the first really significant conversation of the 21st century - but the people involved are not really conversing
• web2.0 is full of starry eyed utopians..they are always wrong, they end up destroying things. I like real things, like Barry Diller - real buildings, real profit. So FOO was utopian cubed - 3 groups of ideologists.
• The idealisation of community is a key part. It’s bound up in the challenge of authority. It’s Jimmy Wales who argues the high school kid knows more than the academics. it’s the suspicion of the expert, not rooted in reality. Not rooted in experts.
• Not suggesting the state should become involved, but not as trusting of the free market - Google and YouTube are benefiting no one except the share holders. The free market is destroying newspapers and media..the market does not always result in some form of utopia.
• People like Jeff Jarvis or more serious like Chris Andersone..think we can all create and emancipate ourselves from the monopolies. Web 2.0 Technology liberates, allows us to realise ourselves as human beings.
• But mainstream media has been doing a pretty good job..it has been collectively providing us with high quality entertainment and information. This is affordable for the masses.
• Culture was accessible for all, you did not have to be wealthy to enjoy it. The people controlling media were not a racket, were not a mafia, most people could get into the business if worked hard enough
• Second argument - the web2.0 does not work. Do away with the gatekeepers, you are destroying the viability of culture and economic terms. People are not making money out of YT, blogs etc, the vast majority of content is worthless. We replace culture with User generated trash. Has value to the people making it, in a narcististic sense but not to anyone else.
• We take the culture and replace it with anon blogs….we have no idea if they are in the pay of Al queda, walmart etc,
• Not saying all mainstream media is good. Watched CNN this morning..kind of trashy. But still believe the good stuff is good stuff. Decent reliable, coherent forces that are generating valuable information. bind us together that creates a civic culture. Much of decline of mainstream media is independent of web…can’t believe it is just the web that people are stealing 20b$ of records every year. mainstream has fallen under the same spell..the cult of the amateur..it needs to be more authorative. Reality Tv not sympathetic to, one step behind the web. Put the 2 things together, and we get a decline
• We have a responsible to pass a higher quality of media…to educate and explain that not everything on wikipedia is true etc
• The web2.0 revolution is not good for advertising. You may be using it, but the collapsing of media is a bad thing for the advertising business. Advertisers are as critical as the media as gatekeepers. User Generated ads are a profound fraud and stealing from everyone and leading to layoffs in industry,. it beings out the worst in places.. Do away with gatekeepers and you can post what you want. You need gatekeepers in advertising to keep everyone honest.
• This whole economy rests on advertising. But the movement is against advertising. The real cult is the cult of the authentic. He loathes authenticity. It is destructive, particular in the advertising industry.
• Web2.0 rejects the very notion of advertising. You have the cult of authenticity with new kinds of tech is the tivo which allows people to skip ads. The result is more advertising…with a media that is uncomfortable with things..the only way to have ads is in content..and to dress up content as advertising.
• If we are to have a viable culture, instead of amateur bloggers, the result is YT. YT is mainly advertising dressed as content. YT is just one long commercial break. I asked the YT founders…aren’t you troubled that there is no diff between ads and content…and they said we are not bothered. As long as the kids are enjoying on YT it does not matter. He thinks we should be worried. When ads become everything then it becomes nothing.

Q: love this, nice to see the opposite view. The last film I saw as James Bond - a 2 hour commercial. Look at magazines - editorial is paid for by advertisers. It’s already happening A: a fair point. it does not happen in the news business, nor in the culture business. this is just the next step..but does not make it good. everyone is tricking everyone else. In magazines you have some degree of independence.

Q: Monocle, a new mag this year, has news and luxury products..intermingle both. A: Don’t know monocle well enough? are you suggesting that he prints stuff to please his advertisers. Q: but he talks about bikes and then uses a luxury bike to advertise it? A: you can do this..it does not mean you are taking bribes from the advertisers. We are all profoundly suspicious of advertising

Q: I agree with most of what you are staying..but maybe I’m a little more optimistic. Won’t people get tired and sceptical..it will have a self-correcting faculty. Web2.0 has credible elements and people will gravitate towards it. A: a fair point, great that new media has given old media a kick in the pants, but don’t want it to turn to a kick in the crotch the final chapter talks about stuff like that, old and the new will come together. I want online interactivity, managed from above rather than below. having written the book I have had a lot of interesting input… the most innovative new companies in SV are not the social networks. The interesting sites are those built expertise..a great example is Jason Calacanis and Mahalo.. sat with him the other week and it was like finding a long lost twin. Calacanis got fed up and formed the service. Paying search experts to build a more valuable search engine. Think there is a fortune to be made with academics..locked into an old world business model that does not work. Unlocking their expertise…great opportunities. Web3.0 will be the rediscovery of expertise and sites that have real value.

Q: confused? A: one issue is about getting to the new model, NYT needs to generate 10s of millions of pages online, they may have to make their stuff online.. The Guardian does a great job, the online guardian I live and die for, combines hi qual journalism and interactivity. Need to revise what a newspaper is. A paper is not that vehicle of mass profitability that it was in the past. the journey between Web2.0 to 3.0 is rocky and dangerous and I hope we get there.

Q: What do you means by managed by above? Your view of 3.0 is a bunch of academics with the rights and credentials to run everything and that is as scary. Q: web2.0 is interesting..co-incidentally arrived when all authority is in crisis. This means that collectively we need to rebuild respect for authority…from above means that you have a site not like wikipedia that is managed by an anon oligarchy of 20 something dropouts. We need something where people with expertise deliver and mange information. When is the last time you went to a doctor from below. the experts needs to be more arrogant, less apologetics..we are above because we earnt it.

Q: you talk about earning the right to be above? You can then make a choice. Cream always rises to the top…not through academic work and the effort you make to get the message out there. Q: cream is not raising to the top in web2.0 Bruce Springstein got some lucky breaks but still worked hard. Web2.0 tops are those that scream the loudest that are skilled at marketing. Putting together a new talkshow about people that are great at what they do. We are going to turn round and find we have no professional acts.

Q: who are you a gatekeeper for? A: I’m a product of the gatekeeper economy, not the gatekeeper. I put together a book proposal, a sophisticated treatment called Digital Vertigo. I took to an agent, a classic gatekeeper. He told me to tear it up and start again, everything got defined and edited..a consequence of that gatekeeper society. blog is unedited garbage…compare writing on blog (crap) with sparkling prose in book.

Tags: andrew+keen, cult+of+the+amateur, web2.0