Can we go back to web 2.0?

I belong to the group of people who believe that big data can and is used against our best interest.

I want to propose that leaving Facebook and returning back to a more loosely structured form of sharing/publishing online is a smart decision. Lets do this in a list:

• • The medium is the message!. Using preboxed online communication, you use the format given to you. It can be liberating and allow you to get to your “content” more quickly, but there is something nice about adjusting the display of your site so that it fits your character.
  • I can decide which text is emphasized!
  • It won’t kill big data but it will make aggregating big data much harder and will give us (the people) a little more of an advantage.
  • Blogs and other sharing tools are way easier.
  • The people that are too lazy to set up a blog (again it is really really easy) might also have nothing to say. So what if you don’t get to hear from someone who can’t be motivated to set up their own sharing platform?
  • The “blog” format is much richer than it used to be. You can share just photos (treat it like Instagram), you can share quick status updates. You could supplement the blog with Twitter. You have so many options on how to share.
  • RSS! Maybe there is something better out now (I might be old fashion) but using RSS you get to subscribe to peoples feeds and you don’t have an algorithm created by a big data company to mine and organize the data for you. You get the news stories that are published and you can scan the titles and decide yourself which is most relevant to you. The news organization itself filters the world for you to make news, you don’t need another layer of filtering. You have the brain width to do this. It might be a bit slower but a slower quality centered stream just makes more sense.
  • So lets say you buy the idea that you can subscribe via RSS. You could subscribe to just my photo posts (if I organize them correctly) I can make a stream just for family, you can subscribe to just domestic news from one source and business from another… you have so much more control!

So what if we have a diversified set of blogs again. We can start linking to each other we can share as much or more of what we already share and it can be a more vibrant community than before. Fuck Facebook.

Here is where it doesn’t work:

• • • There is an advantage to a straight forward and standard medium. Instagram does work really well and if things aren’t consistent enough it is too distracting and not user friendly
    • The more complex medium can get in the way of more seamless sharing. I think there is a benefit to sharing quick and in the moment. I think this could be patched with a more social blogging lay out. Maybe we are using frames again?

The end!