web 2.0 disillusioned2 min read

here’s what i find more and more frustrating about the so-called web 2.0. what matters is less and less the quality of a work than how well their creator or author is connected. if the ability to socially network becomes the defining factor for the success online, this favors people with that particular skill set over people with different talents. as a result the quality suffers.

mexico city by franiska nyffelertaxco zocalo by franziska nyffeler

here’s an example: take on one hand the fantastic photos that my amazing partner franziska nyffeler has been uploading to flickr from her trip to mexico. these are truly artistic photos, intimate without being voyeuristic. she takes risks in her framing, her angles, her lighting, it is innovative, pretty damn great photography, without pretense. yet since she is a rather shy person and does not put much effort into pushing her content around, her photos receive very low page views, around maybe 10 views per photo. and rarely a comment.

fumio nanjo by joi itoiris wu by joi ito

on the other hand there are the mediocre portraits joi ito has been publishing to his flickr account. now let me clarify, i have only the highest regards for joi ito, he is a man of many talents, but his photography is no more than average at best imho. his portraits are often flat, awkward, not well lit. yet his images receive page views in the hundreds, sometimes thousands, and there is even a book published from them.

both works are published under a creative commons license btw. same website, different story. the polemical question to ask here would be: would joi ito’s work receive the same amount of page views, if artistic or even photographic quality was the deciding factor?

i am not pointing fingers, no one is to blame here. i just took these two examples because i am familiar with them, and because i was trying to make my point. now i am all for putting the social into the web, but i think we need a new filter to reintroduce artistic or some other form of content-specific quality into the game.

you could even look at it from a totally different angle. franziska nyffeler is a classically trained, talented artist, willing to publish and share her work, CC-licensed, yet her handicap, so to speak, lies in her social networking abilities and as a result her work gets lost in the maelstrom of user-content. how long will she hold out before getting frustrated? don’t we need to find solutions to give talented, underappreciated people their well-deserved positive feedback online? it is not always where the masses go that you find the good stuff. yet that seems more and more the defining momentum in web 2.0.

7 Replies to “web 2.0 disillusioned2 min read

  1. hmm.. jein, sag ich da.

    http://flickr.com/photos/lomokev/
    oder
    http://flickr.com/photos/all_the_names_are_already_taken_pfff/

    sind zum Beispiel Flick-User wo das Werk und der Impact in einem ausgewogeneren Verhältnis stehen.

    Aber Flickr ist natürlich eine Plattform in der Feedback in erster Linie über die Verlinkung in Gruppen, und das gegenseitige Kommentieren (hochjubeln) von Bildern stattfindet.

    Erfolg und Annerkennung erreicht man aber ganz generell im Leben und besonders in der Kunst nur durch Kontakte, Austausch, Vernetzung und Hartnäckigkeit.
    Oder man hat Glück und trifft den einen, richtigen Galeristen 🙂

    Mir fehlt es auch an allem 🙂 Darum muss ich wohl dieses Forum selbst schaffen..

  2. i am sure you can find many examples proving other viewpoints, but in the end it is not about these examples. my point is, that mass just ain’t a very reliable indicator. if masses of people watch a video on youtube, that does not say anything about its quality. if masses of sheep follow each other and jump off the cliff … well, you catch my drift. so i am asking, isn’t there another way to make content rise to the top? how many people view some content or how many people are on someone’s friend list are such very superficial indicators and they seem to be at the core of much of what’s been dubbed web 2.

  3. Rise on top? Dazu muss man über etwas, der “Masse” sein. Also, nein, wenn man nach vorne will, müssen die andern hinter Dir stehn.

    Dabei stimme ich Dir vollständig zu, die Masse ist kein Indikator für Qualität. Nicht immer 🙂

    Web 2 nimmt nun aber in Anspruch alle mitmachen und interagieren zu lassen. Und das “alle” viele sind kommt es zu Herdenbewegungen.

    Ich sähe hier höchstens Umsetzungsmöglichkeiten über sich selbst qualifizierende Netzwerke in welchen Qualität, Authenzität, etc. erst durch einen Pool bewertet werden müssen. Die Mitglieder des Pools natürlich vorher ebenso wie der Content.

  4. yes yes, good point. rise to the top is the wrong expression. i meant rise to the surface, of course … as opposed to staying lost in the mass of … frankly .. crap. cause for me the theory of web 2.0 would be, masses upload their stuff, trusting that the important stuff gets noticed, makes it to the surface and gets spread around. and of course important can mean a number of things here, relevant, artistically or otherwise noteworthy, newsworthy, thought provoking, qualitative criteria that sets it apart from the mass. but that just does not seem to happen. or not too often anyway.

  5. ja, sobald Kunst unumgänglich wird, wird sie auch wahrgenommen. Wobei mir wichtig scheint, Kunst und Masse sind nicht das Gleiche wie Unterhaltung und Masse.

    Für Kunst interessieren relativ wenige Menschen, anders als für Katzen, Brüste und Babys, die wollen alle sehn.

    Im Fall von franziskas Flickr-Stream muss ich allerdings auch sagen, erkenne ich mehr Potential, denn Unumgänglichkeit. Sehr viel ist im Ansatz gut, wäre aber mit einem Tick mehr Hartnäckigkeit um Welten besser.
    Macht sie auch inszenierte Sachen, oder “nur” Street/Repo?

    Aber immerhin, ich hab sie nun im Auge und kommentier auch ^^

  6. na gut, wenn man natürlich die 08:15 “kunst”-fotographie, um nicht zu sagen postkarten-fotographie (was zumindest im einen fall sehr stark zutrifft), die du als beispiele nennst {lokomev, all_the_names_are_already_taken_pfff) als masstab nimmt .. erm, will sagen, die geschmäcker sind bekanntlich verschieden. ich liebe mutige, überraschende blicke, rohes zeugs, zufälle. inszeniertes eher selten.

    aber gestern hatte ich eine idee (für einen neuen beruf? eine neue website?): Flickr-Kurator.

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