This piece from Dan Frost at the San Francisco Chronicle about sums up Web 2.0 as well as anything I have seen so far.  Well done Dan.

Behind the random silliness of YouTube videos and the juvenile frivolity of MySpace Web sites lies a powerful idea: Everyday people are using technology to gain control of the media and change the world.

Source: DIGITAL UTOPIA / A new breed of technologists envisions a democratic world improved by the Internet

This quote from O’Reilly continues the theme. 

Winners on the Internet “have embraced the power of the web to harness collective intelligence,” O’Reilly wrote, populating “a world in which ‘the former audience,’ not a few people in a back room, decides what’s important.

A better world.  That’s a lofty claim, but I buy it.  We are talking about our day to day experiences, information overload, endless marketing campaigns, distrust of corporations, a yearning for a better way to get good trusted information.

Dubbed Digital Utopians by some, and Web 2.0 innovators by others, this latest wave of tech gurus champion community over commerce, sharing ideas over sharing profits. By using Web sites that stress group thinking and sharing, these Internet idealists want to topple the power silos of Hollywood, Washington, Wall Street and even Silicon Valley. And like countless populists throughout history, they hope to disperse power and control, an idea that delights many and horrifies others.

The political undertones, are real, but relevant.  The point is not politics, but the message that comes with the metaphor.

Its an interesting piece that presents both sides. 

Andrew Keen warns against the dangers of embracing technology’s level playing field, with a piece entitled “Web 2.0 Is Reminiscent of Marx,” and is working on a book lambasting “The Cult of the Amateur.”

If people are absorbed with content created by fellow amateurs, Keen argues, will they ever know greatness? If bloggers disrupt mass media, will they follow journalistic rules of fairness? Can an army of amateur journalists adequately replace corporate news-gathering? Will sophomoric YouTube videos take the place of great films?

I think Keens piece is perfect vindication that the digital utopia Dan speaks of will succeed.  Here is a classic extract:

So what, exactly, is the Web 2.0 movement? As an ideology, it is based upon a series of ethical assumptions about media, culture, and technology. It worships the creative amateur: the self-taught filmmaker, the dorm-room musician, the unpublished writer. It suggests that everyone — even the most poorly educated and inarticulate amongst us — can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves. Web 2.0 “empowers” our creativity, it “democratizes” media, it “levels the playing field” between experts and amateurs. The enemy of Web 2.0 is “elitist” traditional media.

Empowered by Web 2.0 technology, we can all become citizen journalists, citizen videographers, citizen musicians. Empowered by this technology, we will be able to write in the morning, direct movies in the afternoon, and make music in the evening.

What Keen fails to see, as all opponents of change fail to see, is the phase 2, 3, and beyond.  Periods of change challenge the status quo, so Keen challenges the change by suggesting the status quo is better.  But Andrew, what if those “amateurs” are actually smarter than the professionals?  

Care for a few references – Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein … the list goes on.  Those people were not particularly advantaged, beyond intelligence, and I will bet no-one of my small audience reading this has not heard of all three.  They were all amateurs.   By definition the space they pressed forward was net new, and did not exist previously.  So I reject Keen’s position that amateurs are not capable.

Its not that some all of the personally created youtube vids are oscar material.  That is not the point.  The real story is the unwinding of how things used to happen.  Internet and blogs are already doing it to the way we used to think of written material, and youtube will merely drive change in how movies are made.  Don’t worry Andrew, quality will still rise to the top.  How, who, and when we get that quality material, may be different though.

Back to Dan’s article.  He speaks of the “Starfish and the Spider” and the unstoppable power of leaderless organisations.  If there is doubt, watch this, and this.  I have no idea how old these people are, but I think I have older stuff in my fridge.  They are examples of people driving the cutting edge of Google technology.  If you don’t know Google Reader, you will. 

The point is, what is not there:

• executives
• corporate communications
• editing
• formal meeting room

There are real shifts occurring in organisations, customers, and how they interact.  The final word back to O’Reilly:

Web 2.0, he says, is about business.

He says many tech movements start out with similar idealism, only to give way to capitalism. For instance, O’Reilly says, Napster introduced file sharing, but now iTunes has people comfortable with paying for music online.

“You do a barn raising at a particular stage of society,” he said, “and then the developers come in. … It always happens that way.”

PS .. congratulations to Chris and Tara for being catalysts and focus in this piece.  They are deserving of that, because they are shaping the ideas that are needed to help understand what is happening. 

Relevance to Bankwatch:

Banking in 2036 will not be the same as today.  No particular point about that year, except its far enough in the future to consider substantive change.  The key for Banks today, is to understand what steps, and strategies are required to navigate the 30 years between now and then.

The changes are not the kind that you can just sit back for the ride.  This is disruptive change. 

technological innovation, product, or service that eventually overturns the existing dominant technology or product in the market