James Drogan

One has three choices when it comes to Web 2.0.

1. Ignore the phenomena.
2. Accept what others say it means.
3. Think about what you observe of the phenomena and draw your own conclusions.
   

I've opted for the latter.

Web 2.0 has changed the relationship between the time since an event occurred and the number of sources that report on that event.

Communications has gone from "This is London." made famous by  Edward R. Murrow to real-time reporting of events from innumerable sources.  Now I grant you that developments such as the telegraph, radio, and television were steps along the line indicated in the diagram.  But I also think there would be little argument that Web 2.0, and I'm particularly thinking here of user-generated content aided and abetted by the ubiquity of the Internet, has dramatically accelerated the movement downward and towards the right.

What are the implications?  We trusted Murrow, but I doubt that we have extended our trust to all the sources that currently provide us with much data, less information, even less knowledge, and a miniscule amount of insight. 

In this sense, interpret, decide, act, and learn loop (SIDAL) we trusted Murrow to do much, if not all, of the hard work for us.  We trusted Murrow to look out for us, to have our best interests in mind, to report to us the truth.

Now, I sense, we can no longer spread this trust amongst so many sources.

We must take on the SIDAL tasks and we may well be ill-equipped to do this.  It is hard work, and being opposed to hard work, we cede our responsibility for these tasks to the media, the pundits, and the bloggers.  We do it not because we trust them, but because we dislike the hard work necessary to do this ourselves. 

Or we can learn how to perform SIDAL and invest the energy and time necessary to become good at it.  Thereby we become better informed and better able to discharge our responsibilities as citizens.  The latter half of the previous sentence implies that citizens are able to exert leverage to cause the government and the markets to to implement the recommendations that flow from our efforts.  That may be a big stretch.  This, of course, provides causes us to wonder whether our efforts to become SIDAL proficient are investments well spent. 

I call your attention to  "If It’s Fit to Blog, Is It Fit to Print?" by Clark Hoyt in the December 9, 2007 issue of the New York Times.  This is an excellent example of the impact of Web 2.0 and the difficulty inherent in the SIDAl processes.