100/10

Some exciting milestones: firstly, this is my 100th post! Hooray me! ~ and secondly, The Guardian reminds us this week marks the 10th anniversary of the birth of the blog. Now, a blog is born every second. Go, blogs!

Entertainingly, The Guardian's article quotes Andrew Keen, "a former dot-com entrepeneur" and the author of the forthcoming book Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture. The title truly says it all. Mr Keen seems to think that most of web 2.0 is "digital narcissism": "It's seductive in the sense that it convinces people to think they have more to say and are more interesting than they really are," he said. "The real issue is whether it adds any more to our culture. Most of it is just so transient and ephemeral."

Hmmm. That's Life, Andrew. Methinks the description "former dot-com entrepeneur" is indicative - sour grapes, guy! The quality argument is completely fallacious, and has been made of every advance in communication technology since Plato dissed the invention of writing. I do like the "digital narcissism" quote though - I may borrow that for my profile!

The other pundit The Guardian quotes, Dan Gilmour (author of We The Media) is far more blog-friendly. I tend to agree with him:

"Blogging and other kinds of conversational media are the early tools of a truly read-write web," said Dan Gillmor, author of citizen journalism bible We The Media. "They've helped turn media consumers into creators, and creators into collaborators - a shift whose impact we're just beginning to feel, much less understand."