This is a book I bought to prepare myself for a talk I delivered on web 2.0. It is interesting and thought provoking. To some aspect I do agree with the book. The book talks about how amateurism is taking over conventional and professionals content providers. Take for example YouTube. Yes it has taken the world by storm by providing a community driven video clip database. But it also spurned amateurs to put up non-quality content that are not relevant to the masses. What the internet is driving at is more quantity rather than quality.
Another example is blogs. According to the book, blogs has taken over mainstream writing ie newspapers for news. Yes that’s true. Also the book contends that majority of the writings may not be factually validated. That is a problem.
How does the internet affect the economy? In recent years, we see sites the likes of Napster, which provided free MP3 downloads. Of course, the music industry was not happy, resulting in legal action taken agains Napster.
However in my opinion, although the book talks about the darker side of the internet and how it spurs the cult of amateur, but it cannot deny the fact that through the internet, millions have benefitted and affected. It’s digital democracy, the conventional and the mainstream needs to adapt themselves to this revolution.
About the book:
The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy
By Andrew Keen
Published by Nicholas Brealey, 2007
ISBN 1857883934, 9781857883930
228 pages
