Blogosphere Navel-Gazing
There's enough comment about Tim O'Reilly's decision to trademark "Web 2.0" (his response to the controversial issue is here) but the hailstorm of criticism it generated demonstrates how the blogosphere loves to chatter about itself among itself - something one could describe as cyber-navelgazing. The amount of time and energy devoted to whether O'Reilly has the right - or was right - in making a claim onWeb 2.0 (which he didn't invent) has been astounding but perhaps no one should be surprised by it. The blogosphere (and I'm a flag-waving member) loves nothing better to talk about what about people within the blogosphere are talking about to the point where it becomes a vicious circle. Is this a bad thing? No, because it demonstrates how enthusiastic and engaged people are about what's happening. But the O'Reilly firestorm does put the spotlight on one of the blogosphere's annoying habits that many of us who sit very close to the "fire" (or as my friend, Stuart MacDonald says, those us so close to trees we have bark marks), are often blissfully unaware about.
May 31st, 2006 at 12:14 pm
You know Mark I think one of the bits of fallout has been the wake up call that maybe we lit the torches, sharpened the stakes, and rolled out the guillotine a little to fast and with too much fervor.