We've been told that much of what makes Web 2.0 so '2.0' is the aspect of interactivity. The word itself implies an 'action between' - which implies two actors. Web 2.0 typically is defined by a layer of new technologies that are intended to make this interactivity easier. But like many things that claim interactivity for the sake of marketing, there often are not really 'two actors' and if we experience it as interactive it is because we are being cleverly hoodwinked.

The idea of something being 'interactive' arises originally (it would seem) with being able to act on the thing that is acting on you. For instance, a video game compares to a movie sometimes only in this way: the video game is an interactive movie. The watcher is now a 'player' and may act within or on the game itself. Sometimes however, when advertising and marketing gets out ahead of reason, it might be claimed that the consumer's ability to change channels on the television makes it 'interactive'. I think this is sloppy use of our language, and that anything which is by its nature a push medium - in particular any mass medium is by default - does not pass the sniff test for interactivity. Lets put it this way - in order for something to be interactive you need two parties, and both need to be active - during movies and television (and even when in the grocery store) most of us are passive. If someone tells you otherwise obviously they are selling you something.

Then video games, which are a mass medium, must do something over-and-above mere button pushing to achieve interactivity. We could call them interactive because the player does not merely act on the device (the game system) but on the content itself: the story or action in the game.

By degrees, the vaunted interactivity of Web 2.0 is supposed to be not just interactivity but human interactivity. That is to say, it is supposed to mean that no longer is the web merely man reading information across the world or man interacting with machine, but man interacting with man via the web. Of course, this idea of 'social media' being new is apparent nonsense given the long history of usenet and forums, and by-in-large Web 2.0 seems more like a set of technologies which open up human interactivity on the web to a larger audience. For usenet, IRC and forums certain barriers existed (though each presents less) to participation. The Blog however, is less of a technology and more of a doctrine or form. It risks perverting human interactivity with the mass popularity of journalism, but at the same time 'makes sense' to people both old and young, a delicate balance that is daily being straddled more or less successfully across the internet.

Even further though, we could say that Web 2.0 actually consists more of a doctrine about how to develop on the web than any kind of technologies. The trouble we have defining it is that we find the need to represent something very important as a technological advance, when Web 2.0 is a change of perspective that if looked at very soberly, will not meet the criterion for 'advance' or 'innovation' that we typically look for. Social Media has existed long before, but it is in the doctrine of the human interactive web (Web 2.0) that you find it has equal importance with traditional media such as press releases, brochures, company listings, journals and periodicals, research data and so on. Naming it '2.0' is quasi-technical jargon and in all likelihood anyone who has actually versioned things - a programmer for instance - would never have named it thus.

Even with the lower barrier of entry still many people prefer the phone over email or Facebook or chat. Is this old-fashioned, interacting voice to voice? Or is there something deeper going on? For one, I think that Web 2.0's new criteria of human interaction clashes with the internet's main strength: anonymous information sharing. But in human interaction, the less anonymity the better (or the worse, depending on whom you are interacting with.) On this count, the phone wins: email and chat are fast, but the medium is thick. By this I mean that the normal flow of a conversation is constrained very much by both: emotion and tone are not present and thus the invention of the emoticon. On this count, we can tell that even the phone is inferior to real interaction, and it is possible that even video-chat and voice-chat over long distances will fail because of simple delay. Video chat even more because the presentation is bandwidth-heavy and only approximates seeing the person. The phone system is more direct than TCP/IP and streaming services often randomly lag. Phone service cutting out is bad enough, but the foibles of voice over IP are countless. I think we can agree that the older technology is more perfected: phones are better for human interaction.

What does this mean for the web (by which I mean web sites, the world of the http://www) and its future based on the new doctrine of Web 2.0? It may mean that the web itself becomes less influential, but without a restoration of influence to traditional mass media such as newspapers, television, radio, etc. Web 2.0 points away from itself: The web is by in large a way to cheaply present the same information to numerous people in disparate locations. Now we are trying to use this vehicle to instead display different information to each of those people, automatically. In this case, the phone already does this: you get exactly what you're looking for - the other person.

The web is currently the best way to cheaply present identical information to numerous people in disparate locations. Radio, newspapers and television do this as well: the web is destined for superiority. But what if people finally recognize human interactivity over the web as the chimera it really is? Only so many can be popular, and personal security is an issue in less lawful areas. The new doctrine of human interactivity on the web is an uneasy fit, but it need not be. Perhaps though, the website is the wrong vehicle for it.

Sniffing around yesterday I found this: 'Welcome to the Plutocracy':

...they voluntarily threw out restrictions against corporate funding of campaigns, restrictions that date back to 1907 and have been upheld by every court since then...

While it seems worrying, really all it does is allow corporations to burn more cash into the mass media for political campaigns - neither of which concern me greatly. Consider:

Just as traditional media conditioned the audience to be passive consumers — first of commercial messages, then of products — the traditional organization conditioned employees to be obedient executors of bureaucratically disseminated work orders. Both are forms of broadcast: the few dictating the behavior of the many. The broadcast mentality isn't dead by any means. It's just become suicidal.

In contrast, the Internet invites participation. ...

From something I've read far too late.

I think the court may be being partisan. But I think it's futile. The more people use the internet, the more fractious they become; the more mocking of mass-packaged anything. There are still some bastions - people who lack the will or anger (it seems to be a big factor on the internet) to resist marketing. But I think that is slowly changing. And that is the cause of our recession.

Having trouble with the internet at home right now, which would clearly explain the lack of evening posting yesterday.

Hoping tonight the roommates and I will be able to resolve the issue.