ryan hypothetisch

… die mir gerade einfiel. Auf englisch, weil ich durch ein paar Vorträge von der MediaInTransition-Conference sprachlich umgepolt bin:

In the world as it used to be we would talk about “users” and “producers”. But what we forgot was that “user” comes from the word “using”, just as “producer” is derived from “producing”. So these terms don´t actually describe a person as a whole - they just describe a temporary action or behaviour. Everyone of us has always produced and used things, being this one same person.

So what happened now is that new technologies made producing much easier and cheaper. But probably more important, with the help of the internet they made the distribution of produced things much easier and cheaper. So now there are many more people producing, simply because it became possible.

And that has great implications on our society. Because it´s not just a few producers - of media, of TV, of music, of consumer products etc. It has democratized access to the outcome of creative activities that have become worthwile for all of us. The variety of products of all kind will be beyond anything we have ever imagined.

So for me, Web2.0 is about this astonishing social impact of technologies lowering costs for production and distribution of creativity, as well as for the consuming all the satisfying outcome of it.

Some might say, that social networking is also a very important element of Web2.0 as well. But if you think of connecting to others as of producing messages and distributing them to people all around the world to interconnect with the digital natives - then it basically really comes down to the democratization of production and distribution through these godsend new technologies.