So Where is Web 2.0 Going?

I don’t know. However, it is comforting to know that web guru’s don’t really know either. Hugh McLeod (Gapingvoid) draws attention to a recent Radio 4 In Business programme discussing the emerging direction of the internet. As Hugh puts it,

It was actually a really interesting show. I think the key point I took away is that the media business is currently in a period of great transition i.e. nobody really knows where the whole thing is going to end up. This inclu(d)es big media companies AND “blogging gurus” alike.

I like the concession, in part because these Net technologies are emerging in the context of wider social shifts. In academia online relational networks are developing along with changes in curricula particularly new programmes that blur the vocational and theoretical barrier. Amongst religious bloggers, the networks they are creating online reflect changes in both ecclesiology and mission as well as changes in the notion of participation and belonging. For those interested in Web 2.0 and it’s application to church communities, there are two great pieces online from Ryan Torma and Aaron Klinefelter. Finally (well finally in terms of the areas I blog within), musicians are turning to Web 2.0 applications as they move through the wreckage of the failing and creacking music industry.

In these three areas it is not just that new media are allowing us to do the same thing we always did, but in a different (and more fashionable) way. Rather, changing real world social contexts and connections are demanding new methods of navigation and new social networks.

This to me is most apparent when you look at the creative class and when you look at those seeking to network internationally without the heavy and solid networks of modernity. Another way of putting that is to say the benefits of this technology are most apparent to those who are seeking to move outisde established networking solutions. To this end new media is always subversive, a theme I’ll return to next week.

[tags] Web 2.0, Gapingvoid, Cosmopolitanism, Creative Class[/tags]