1) Andrew Keen's belief that there are “grave” consequences as a result of today’s participatory “Web 2.0” does seem to be coming true. Our values, economy, and creativity are being affected by the media growing and changing over the years. Keen gave some good examples of how "Web 2.0" is starting to kill parts of our economy and how we view what is right and wrong. One of the things he talked about is how movies today can be downloaded offline so easily that people do not need to go the see them in the movies. This is very true instead of spending the money on going to see a movie, people find some way to watch it for free illegally. Even if they are not downloading movies this way, now people can watch better quality films at home because they can get it on their HDTVs. A point that also ties to the movie industry was the fact that video stores are starting to lose a lot of business because people are downloading movies or using different methods of renting movies like using the online mailing system Netflix provides. I personally do use Netflix and love it, and now sometimes I also catch myself saying that I will not go see a movie because I will just get it on my Netflix when it comes out. A second thing that the Web is killing is printed text. More and more newspapers are putting all of their stories online focusing on their website more that on the printed paper they need to put out. Newspaper staffs have been getting smaller because of this and people are getting let go because they cannot keep them on in the dying industry. I know last year when I went on a trip to the Poughkeepsie Journal, one of the head photographers was telling us how the printed text (media) was dying and that now they are just trying to keep up with the online seen to try to stay alive. Lastly another thing being affected, not so much by the Web, but new technologies in general is how reality TV is over taking Scripted Shows. TV used to be something that people could watch to see the news and then be entertained by shows put on by all different stations. Now more than ever reality TV is taking over because it does not cost as much to put on. Good scripted shows are hard to find and it is scary for the TV industry to have to make so many cut backs just to stay on the air. I know I have been getting sick of seeing all these different reality shows taking over the TV. I think back ten years when I was younger and wish the shows that were on then could come back and be on again instead of the really "bad stuff" on TV today. The world, the media and technology are all really changing so fast that who knows that will happen in the future. Will we finally stop trying to change so much and just learn to stay with what is good? I do hope that the media world stops changing so much, so fast. Things are going by us now and we don't even realize it because we are on to the next new thing before the last one got old.
2) "Sheep are devouring men" (Sir Thomas More - Utopia) - this is a very interesting concept to think about and at the same time one that is true. It makes me think about how much we today relay on computers and the internet that we feel that without them we would not survive when this of course is not true at all. A question I think of is, did we become so dependent of something we created that we are letting it eat away at us instead of us keeping control of it? In a way I do think that the media and technology world is starting to shadow over our own. Sometimes I wish that ALL power would turn off, the computers would just stop working, that people could talk with one another with out having to feel like they need to text or IM them. Its almost like technology is dehumanizing us. As said in "the day the music died", "Five hundred years later, in the Web 2.0 world computers are consuming journalists with the same results: Many people are losing their livelihood, and a few lucky souls -- are getting very, very rich." I think it is trying to say that the Web is killing the world. Its not letting people live their lives to the fullest, instead it is letting only a few get richer and have all the control while the rest loose everything. Another question we can ask then is: Are the ones holding the power in the internet world pulling the strings and we are nearly puppets being controlled by them or are we all just letting the internet and the web take us over. It is a question we may never find the answer to, or at least not until it is too late.
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