Stowe Boyd started the day today with a session on Web 2.0 plumbing. Plumbing? I hear you ask? What has the web got to do with pipes and water? Well, quite a lot it seems (purely analogously of course). Stowe traced the trajectory of the internet from a ‘web of pages’ through to what is now a web of flow and it is through flow that the web is becoming a platform of equality.
I found his whole discussion of blogging fascinating. So often, we in the social media world hail blogging as the great equalising technology – which it was when it first started. While newspapers ‘broadcast’ information and readers passively listened, blogs allowed everyone to contribute – blog writers and blog commenters. But, when you think about it, the blogger herself soon became the ‘broadcaster’. Yes, commentary allowed other people to get involved, but who gained the reputation for the topic? The reputation generally accrues with the blogger themselves not with the audience, especially if, as a commenter, you comment far and wide on a large number of blogs. This trend is attested to by the number of A-List bloggers whose word is quoted and requotes and whose posts are linked to continuously. No, it isn’t exactly like the traditional media model, but nor is it the equal grounding that it was hoped to have been.
Enter the web of flow and the fragmentation of discussion. Conversations about blog posts are happening more and more in locations far removed from the blog itself. Although the blogger might instigate the conversation with her blog post (or even title), there is a buzz of discussion occurring in various other places – Digg, Friendfeed, Techmeme and so on. Suddenly you have the opportunity to truly build your own reputation in different communities, whether or not you are the person who instigate the post or not.
Stowe’s web of flow is a web where we all watch multiple applications as things happen. Our virtual ears are listening to the murmer of conversation continuously and we dip in and out of it as we choose. We get involved in various conversations where they happen and may never even approach the blog. What does that mean for blog design, or A-list fame? The former – it means it will have to change. The design will be in the content alone. The latter – probably not much as I think it is human nature to find leaders and follow them, but the leaders will find themselves across a multitude of platforms, not sitting on their own blogs waiting for the audience to come.
Img: Tesla314
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Tags: w2e_europe, w2e_europe08, Web2.0 Expo Europe
