Goodness! It seems my previous post was by far the most popular (in views) so far. I did want to continue it into more detail because…well… I rather missed the point I set out to state.
In this part I’ll talk more about what I found the Internet to hold as opposed to reeling off analogy after analogy (though no promises are being made)
The first thing I want to talk about is Wikipedia.Here’s what i have to say first off: Genius. Wikipedia (If you’ve been living under a rock these past years) Is a free electronic Encyclopedia that has over 17 million articles (that’s Seventeen MILLION…. 17,000,000… it’s mind-boggling) in a variety of languages, all written collaboratively by the average Joe blog and for many has become the first-stop repository for any information they seek (Obscure hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy reference). The fact that it can be edited by most anyone with an account does make its accuracy arguable but the simple idea alone of a fountain of all our collective knowledge and experience is what really makes Wikipedia great in my eyes. It’s the first thing I think about when I hear the word “Internet” and for a good reason I would say, as well.
Moving on our tour we come to a grinding halt at media sharing websites, YouTube specifically. I have no problems with YouTube apart from the people using it including myself as a matter of fact. It was here I learned the meaning of the term “flame war” and it was also here that I learned to avoid them. YouTube as a website does feel somewhat gimmicky.. its idea of sharing videos can be clearly seen and there’s nothing wrong with that but sometimes it does feel like netting a shoal of fish only to find two or three that are actually worth effort to eat.
Leaving the world of shared media and Godwin’s Law behind us we move on to the world of forums and then, quickly leave again because all that appears to happen here are more flame wars, pointless remarks and topics that have already been discussed a million times before. the only thing that makes forums different from these conversations is that a middle man has been added in the form of a computer system. While I admit that forums do play an important role in special interests a lot of them seem to be about nothing special.
Sailing ever further across the seas of the net we find ourselves floating in the worldwide web’s Bermuda triangle. Where threads and discussions are said to have died long ago never to be resurrected. empty user accounts of all kinds reside here, leaving an eery quiet.
Further still we travel to a more familiar corner of the internet The blogosphere where there seems to be an odd sense of intellectualism in the air. not that there’s anything wrong with it of course, just with my past experiences so far of the Internet I find it a bit difficult to get used to at first.
For now that’s the end of our trip as my beloved partner is calling me over to stop being a nerd for just one minute (says he, using his shiny Macbook)
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