The Great Seduction

这是一个关于The Great Seduction的思维导图

The Great Seduction

• The author′s metamorphosis from believer into skeptic of Web 2.0. (Para.1-7)
  • The author′s original Internet dream
    • Making the world a musical place
      • A pioneer in the first Internet gold rush
      • Founding Audiocafe.com
  • The author's transformation
    • It lacks cinematic drama.
    • On a two-day camping trip in September 2004
      • FOO Camp
        • Friends of O′Reilly Camp
        • With a couple of hundred Silicon Valley utopians
          • Friends of multi-millionaire founder Tim O' Reilly
            • unconventionally rich, richly unconventional
            • habor a messianic faith
            • A shared hostility toward traditional media and entertainment unites them.
        • In Sebastopol--the headquarters of O′Reilly Media
        • An exclusive, invitation-only event
        • Each fall, hosted by O′Reilly Media
      • "Democratization" on every lips
        • All were going to be democratized by Web 2.0
          • Media
          • Information
          • Knowledge
          • Content
          • Audience
          • Author
          • ...
          • The Internet would democratize Big Media, Big Business, Big Government, even Big Experts.
      • Emptiness at the heart of their conversation
        • The author's dream had fallen on deaf ears
        • The promise of using technology to bring more culture to the masses had been drowned out by FOO Campers' collective cry for a democratized media.
      • The author realized FOO Camp was a sneak preview
        • A beta version of the Web 2.0 revolution
        • They not only talked about new media but also were new media.
        • Everyone was simultaneously broadcasting themselves, but nobody was listening.
        • The law of digital Darwinism
          • The survival of the loudest and most opinionated
      • The author stopped participating and sat back and watched
• The author′s criticism of Web 2.0. (Para.8-13)
  • The dangers of democratization
    • Undermining truth
    • Souring civic discourse
    • Belittling expertise, experience, and talent
  • The great seduction
    • The Web 2.0 revolution′s promise to bring more truth to more people
      • A smokescreen
      • More depth of information
      • More global perspective
      • More unbiased opinion from dispassionate observes
    • Real situation
      • Superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis
      • Shrill opinion rather than considered judgement
  • Harm of user-generated content
    • Decimating the ranks of our cultural gatekeepers
      • As professional critics, journalists, editors, musicians, moviemakers, and other purveyors of expert information are being replaced by amateur bloggers, hack reviewers, homespun moviemakers, and attic recording artists.
    • The radically new business models suck the economic value out of traditional media and cultural content.
      • The models are based on user-generated material
  • The real consequence of Web 2.0 revolution
    • Less culture
    • Less reliable news
    • A chaos of useless information
  • The blurring, obfuscation, and even disappearance of truth
    • Threatening thr quality of civil public discourse
    • Encouraging plagiarism and intellectual property theft
    • Stifling creativity
  • All that Web 2.0 really delivers is more dubious contents from anonymous sources, hijacking our time and playing to our gullibility.
• The author′s explanation of his stance. (Para.14-17)
  • Proof
    • The author gives an example.
    • "Al Gore′s Army of Penguins"
      • Featured on YouTube
      • A crude "self-made" satire of Al Gore's pro-environment movie An Inconvenient Truth
      • Depicting a penguin version of Al Gore preaching to other penguins about global warming
      • It belittles the seriousness of Al Gore′s message.
        • A big lie
          • The video is nothing more than political spin, enabled and perpetuated by the anonymity of Web 2.0,, masquerading as independent art.
  • The flattened, editor-free world
    • A lie can make its way around the world before the truth has the chance to put its boots on.
    • Someone can post their amateurish creations at will
      • Independent videographers
      • Podcasters
      • Bloggers
    • No one is being paid to check their credentials or evaluate their material
    • Untrustworthy content of every stripe
      • Media is vulnerable.
  • Trust and truth are the whipping boys of the Web 2.0 revolution
• One chilling reality
• The author′s metamorphosis from believer into skeptic is not very exciting and surprising, and lacks dramatic conflicts.
• In the economic and cultural benefits of technology
• The Web 2.0, characterized by the active participation of the users, it′s undermining the authority of learned experts and the work of professionals, threatening the quality of civil public discourse, encouraging plagiarism bluring the truth.