What The Internet Isn't

looseBits writes "Doc Searls and David Weinberger, co-authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto, have put together a 10-part guide for how to stop mistaking the Internet for something it isn't. It contains some painfully obvious and often overlooked characteristics of the 'world of ends' we call the Internet."

Comments

Flower Power Internet strikes again...

[Mulletproof]

Honestly, this sounds like a list of Doc and David wish the internet wasn't. I know they haven't been around the last few years to notice that the internet is a constantly evolving entity, or the fact that organizations are constantly adapting it to suit their needs. Fact is these guys need a serious reality check, because it's damn near everything they say it's not; in no small part because it's making people money doing it. How many stories have we had here on /. about spammers making huge amounts of money because it actually is getting people rich? I mean come on--

The web is not:

...like television, a way to hold eyeballs still while advertisers spray them with messages.

In your perfect world it isn't, but it is in this one. They musta missed that banner at the top of this page. Nope, no advertising there, no sir.

...the Net something that telcos and cable companies should filter, control and otherwise "improve."

...Until they get their asses sued off by the some malcontent weenie for not controlling the content. Let's file this one under "wishful thinking".

...a bad thing for users to communicate between different kinds of instant messaging systems on the Net.

...Economics disagree with you AGAIN. Sure, it's not a bad thing for you as an end user, but then you're not the one who's absorbing the cost to develope and maintain that "free" instant messenger service are you? Nor are you the one that has to worry about where those eyeballs go when they aren't viewing the advertisements that keep that service free.

Etc, etc... They have a point here and there, but Doc Searls and David Weinberger are living in the that hippie fantasy world where the net (and information) is free, baby, free! Maybe it shouldn't be some of what they argue, but the sad fact is it's nearly everything other people are mistaking it for.

Gotta love those flower childern...