Point 1 is spot on. I often remind people that cars were first described as horseless carriages – I will now also use the iron horse example! The language changes once we reach a point where collectively, we realise that we are dealing with something that changes the game – and with social media we are not at that point yet. How we use language is always interesting – especially when you try to determine the underlying purpose. That is why citizen journalist is an interesting one – because I think its purpose is provide re-assurance to traditional journalists through the suggestion that being ‘a journalist’ is a necessary pre-condition for effective contribution in the news space.

Your point about structure and urls is an interesting one which got me thinking. Of course in the 1.0 digital world, the url was not important – except for a home page. This is because all the subsequent information was contained within a structure with clearly defined navigation – in fact essentially the whole skill of website design lies in structure and navigation. As a result, individual urls became meaningless strings of characters.

Now that information is becoming liberated from websites and living on its own, each bit of information becomes its own home page, and therefore requires a sensible url in order to make it more searchable / discoverable. This is why blog platforms are good for publishing information – they attach sensible urls to each post.

However, once you progress to a medium such as Twitter which is totally separated from a place of distribution, the url once again becomes meaningless. Here is is purely the subject matter and incorporation of other ‘folksonomy’ techniques (#tags, @ and RT) that provides the context. These are all facilitators of connection rather than classification (process / space characteristics). Information is not relevant in terms of where it comes from or lives (a url based identity), relevance comes from how it is connected (the space in which it lives and how it relates to, and connects with, other information in the space).

Keep thinking!

R

Now it’s a lot easier for me to explain them to others.

Yet I must add that because of the fertility of your ideas, they raise as many questions about the emerging new world as they answer. That changes are happening are undeniable. The full effects of those changes in how we produce, approve and organize knowledge can only be guessed at. As you rightly point out, since all we have known, hitherto, is the Gutenberg-constructed universe, definite statements on a post-Gutenberg world are a tasking, perhaps even conceited, venture.

Two points you raise that I find quite intriguing are:

1) How institutions & Gutenberg-conditioned individuals will try to frame the historical break as a continuity, e.g., citizen journalism (and I would add web 2.0), so that they can apply familiar terms of judgment in appraising it. In a sense, this is the only way it can make sense really, like the way the label ‘ iron horse’ was used to describe the bicycle when by the first Africans who saw it. The very act of classifying the quantum leap in the language of a continuity, however chaotic, misses the point.

2) The whole pre-eminence super-structure given to locale on the web, by which I refer to URLs. Could the trend towards space and process lead to the increasing relevance or downgrading on the emphasis on the URL/domain name/website dominance as the pathway to the web? Are we be headed for a white-label web? At least, as far as subjects of discourse go? So while eBay, Gmail or Amazon would still be relevant for its transactional uses, lots of site names/identities that seek to foster discussion or provide information would become increasing outmoded.

These are just first impressions. I may be mistaken.

I must confess that I am still re-reading the post. Each time a new idea leaps off the page, a new thought peeks its head out. I am still digesting.

As I have said in the past, I really think you should explore teaching a course on the subject, as I believe it is a valid area of academic research. I urge you to give this some serious thought.

Once again, thanks for the post.

Obi Onyeaso