The state of the web?

The internet has many faces – almost as many as the people that browse around it. Some have argued that Facebook acted as a catalyst / facilitator for the unrest in North Africa, others have used twitter and YouTube to track down criminals (including the police!)

On the other hand it helped transform ‘The worst song in the world’ into a hit…

Whilst many believe that the web is impacting our ability to remember stuff (search engines are replacing memory), others have pointed out that fiction (often cited as brain stimulation) is nonexistent online. Mashable however recently ran an article which shows that even fiction is finding its way online… when it published the top ten fictitious character blogs (The Batman, Mrs Stephen Fry, Death Star PR).

The digital world is becoming an eclectic place both good and bad it is morphing further and further away from corporate / government Web 1, we are firmly in web 2, or possibly Web 3.
What to make of all of this? I have little to add, and am a gape much like the next person at the sheer impact that of the digital world.

And yet even on this some can go too far… Every person on Earth to have a mobile by 2016 (Ericsson’s CEO as reported by the age), I could be wrong, but I find this just a little offensive on behalf of those that ‘we’ are currently not helping to feed themselves and who’s world we are impacting through climate change and other eco issues. I am pretty confident that mobile phones are not a priority for them right now – and nor will they be in 2016.

I/We love the web, but also think that it is important to keep some perspective. Yes the internet is impacting the real world, and on occasion it is both important and constructive, other times… not so much.