Good topic, and I'm sympathetic to his outlook, but he just makes too many mistakes to put together a convincing case. ( )

It is refreshing to read a book about web2.0, or user-generated content or crowdsourcing that is not written by someone goggle-eyed about how it is the best thing since even before sliced bread. This one provides such refreshment in spades: Far from vaunting limitless possibilities, unprecedented end-user empowerment and long tails of endless choice, Andrew Keen has written the anti-internet polemic of the decade. Actually he does make a lot of mention of the net's endless choice—it's just that it is all drivel, so it's worse than limited choice because who wants to spend their whole life raking through rivers of sewage to find a dropped earring?

This reviewer suspected that Keen would have made not a few online enemies with this book, and in briefly searching its title she was not disappointed. It looks as though the author’s self-confessed handicap as a converted, failed 'net entrepreneur is fuel for much ridicule. But she's sure that ignorance, and lack of experience or involvement in the movement would probably have been lambasted even more heavily by critics. Of course, one does have to pay for this book to read it—unlike the subject matter of most of its tirades—and it’s often a smart (lucrative) business strategy to write something that will get a lot of people browned off.

This reviewer doesn’t know how much Keen has collected from its publishers to date, but her guess would be that some points are deserved here, for: “If you can’t join them, beat 'em”

That aside, there’s not really enough to be said in here that requires the 200 pages used to get to the last word, so much of it is, to put it unkindly, empty-headed ranting. The affront that is taken about internet hoaxing, and the fear that is apparent about the possibility for malicious harm are genuine enough points. But they come across as overdone. The citing of examples of “viral” episodes where something-that-is-wrong-on-the-internet sometimes propagates like a bush fire are entertaining and sometimes outrageous, but leave the impression that Keen misses the point about how rare they are as a fraction of the totality of unverified, unverifiable 2.0 content (and sure it's drivel, if you thought it was supposed to interest you) that is fashioned continually.

Even the notion of regarding every tweet, blog post, youtube contribution and facebook whatever as being in the public domain—and therefore potentially another ignition point for a web-transmitted conflagration of stuff & nonsense—is incorrect. There is as much chance of essentially private conversations between a handful of buddies who share online ever being publicly viewed, as there is of the millionth monkey’s Shakespearian Sonnet being found, amongst the random keystrokes of its fellows. Most of the traffic that the author finds so abominable is unlikely to ever be intended for public consumption—it just uses technology that could allow that to happen, which seems to be a major difference. Similiarly the ubiquitous anonymity of nearly everything is misleading, because within their micro social circles, the real identity of most online aliases is probably perfectly well known. Actually, this makes Keen’s pasting of examples of banality look rather nosy, as someone who skulks around public places listening to strangers talking to each other and taking notes. Especially since it's for the purpose of investigative polemicising.

Lurking behind the stream of attacks on mass amateurisation, but audible nonetheless—because for all that, Keen’s arguments are engaging and entertainingly written rather than strident, shrill calls to action—is a bigger worry. This is the social decline (AKA “dumbing down”) that is feared to result from the new culture, from its new rules, and its only slightly older tech kit. Rather than come out and say that society is getting dumber, the author points to declines in revenue, and therefore jobs, training and talent, of the professional league of publishing; in investigative journalism, general print, music, and other forms of creative content. Presumably if we are demanding less of all these, and filling the space with rubbish and/or ripped-off mashed-up contributions of our own, then it is a safe conclusion that critical standards of knowledge, thinking and artistic appreciation are all going to take a dive? This reviewer suspects that deduction to be significantly too negative. But at least she’s been warned (and amused)

Francesca

An extremely frustrating book. Andrew Keen's thesis, that Web 2.0 is destroying our culture, may in fact be provable. However, this book is full of obviously fallacious arguments (too many to list here, but Lawrence Lessig has collected a few at http://www.lessig.org/blog/2007/05/ke...), making convincing me impossible.

Keen rails against the amateur blogger giving their opinion on something they know nothing about. He is guilty of the same sin, but in print. ( )

I don't agree with everything is on this book, but I sincerely believe we need more books like this to fully appreciate the extent, dangers, and consequences of the web2.0 revolution.
On July 13, 2007 I had the pleasure and the honor to interview Andrew Keen for the Novedge blog. Here is the link:
http://blog.novedge.com/2007/07/an-in... ( )

Should we tear down the veil and give the unwashed masses the keys to the secrets of the temple?
Oop, too late. Now what?
Mr. Keen argues that “what the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment."
Duh? Hell, yeah!

BUY, BORROW, or BURN?
BORROW ( )