Web 2.0 Cultural Homogeneity and Class Systems
Whether you love or hate the Web 2.0 meme, you have to admit it's gained a lot of traction in both tech and business circles. Now we're beginning to see cultural and sociological posts about Web 2.0, although Danah Boyd and Barb Dybwad have both written great posts on similar themes in the past.
Anil Dash wrote that the Web 2.0 conference last week had some "cultural myopia", because it was attended mostly by an "Old Boy's Club" of mostly white middle class males. Anil brought up a very good point related to that: Web companies these days want to be both media and technology companies, so they need to "connect with a wide variety of audiences".
In one way, Anil's point was illustrated by the attention the What Teens Want panel got at the conference. A lot of people told me it was their favorite panel, because it opened their eyes to a world they previously knew nothing about - how teenagers use new media and what products they use. For example a lot of folks I spoke to seemed shocked that the teenagers on the panel never pay for media and they rip n' burn whenever possible.
Dare Obasanjo amplified Anil's point in a follow-up post:
"Most of the speakers and attendees are white males in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties. There are few blacks, women, indians or east asians. Much fewer than I'm used to seeing during my typical workday or at other conferences I have attended."
There's not much I can say to that, being squarely in the white middle class male demographic. The only minority aspect of me in the Web 2.0 world is that I live and work from the other side of the world, in New Zealand. And having been in Silicon Valley for two weeks, I can confirm that I'd be a lot more successful in Web 2.0 if I was based in California. I don't think that counts as discrimination though.
Incidentally: before I pursue my American Dream, I need to somehow get a working visa. Talk about cultural obstacles for Web 2.0 - do you know how hard it is for a non-US citizen to get a visa to work here?! Anyway, that's a topic for another post...
To wrap up, Lucas Gonze has a post about the class system of the Web:
"The web is middle class, filesharing networks are street, pay-per-download DRM stores are aristocracy. The technology implies a literal pecking order."
I have to say, it's great to see these issues being discussed. It makes a nice change from all the Web 2.0 definitions and bubble talk that have dominated the conversation lately. I'd much rather hear people challenging the cultural and sociological aspects of Web 2.0, than read another stupid list of what isn't Web 2.0 or moralizing posts about the current 2.0 bubble. Let's keep the conversation about Web 2.0 diverse and forward-thinking.
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"A lot of people told me it was their favorite panel, because it opened their eyes to a world they previously knew nothing about..."
It was FIVE PEOPLE. This was not a representative slice of the teenage world, or a carefully conducted investigation of actual teenagers' actual habits. It was FIVE KIDS sitting on stage. Yes it's interesting to hear, but anyone who draws conclusions they might apply to products or services is crazy.
One of the things people seemed to be surprised about is that "teens" rarely use Yahoo. Surely Yahoo knows in far greater detail about the demographics of their users--this couldn't possibly be a surprise to them. Same with ebay...anyone really think eBay isn't aware of the age of their users?
I certainly agree with the "old boys club" thing--it's pretty much the old white boys who didn't cash out in web 1.0.
Yes, I agree with you on the 5 kids bit. I was going to add that it wasn't very representative (the kids were all from the bay area, for a start).
Totally agree with you that the conference was pretty myopic, despite the one session about SK Earthlink and a profile of the Korean mobile market and users.
How about a "What the rest of the world wants" panel?
Funny. Nice post
Jeez. Going to this conference must have been like hanging out at the gap. for three days
How many collaborative word processors do we need? Am I going to write my business plan with my partners on someone else's server?
These "original guys" are trying to convince the world they have a business model when theirs looks just like the other guy's (and they look like the other guys). Its like they all following each other around "riffing" off of each other's (boring) ideas (that's my definiton of 70% of the "mashups" I've seen to date).
If that is the case, we are in for some boring stuff -- that and waiting for the next big Yahoo! Google, acquistion/merger.
Without some "diversity of thinking" not just race, nationality or sex, it'll be a bit like going to a hot club and finding its filled with "mostly white middle class males".
Frightening.
Boring.
Bad.
These guys need a little flavor, they need to think a bit more about where the money will come from and the lasting value of their project really is.
By the way, nobody's keeping anyone out that I can see -- its some sort of odd self-selected segregation.
Boy do I know all about U.S. visas! Seriously, if you need advice, email me.
As for white males, I have been thinking about the same thing (I'm interested in social aspects of Web 2.0, blogs and such), so I put a little tracker on Simpy's blog - http://blog.simpy.com/blojsom/blog/ , which maps readers on the map of the world (look at the right side of the page, scroll down). New Zealand doesn't even register! Hey, you are not subscribed!
But look at North America and Europe! I suppose those are people interested in Web 2.0, tagging, folksonomies, social bookmarking, etc.
"Let's keep the conversation about Web 2.0 diverse and forward-thinking."
Well said. We need to become more open-minded, and look at how the web is used by people outside of our tech bubble.