Google hates high-design websites. Google needs plaintext. People hate high-design websites after they get past the wow-factor because high-design websites tend to lead with form over function, confusing people with innovations in design rather than innovations in usability. Graphic designers might be the bane of my existence as a technology strategist and an expert in SEO. PR folks aren’t the only people who don’t get Web2.0.
Category Archives: Folksonomy
More on Everything is Miscellaneous
In response to Everything is Miscellaneous Book Review, Nathan Ketsdever asked Kevin Donlan a few questions in the comments about Everything is Miscellaneous and Kevin responded in full…
Everything is Miscellaneous Book Review
Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder, jumps all over the place for the entirety, almost in a “miscellaneous” way, author David Weinberger brings his point together nicely in the end. Weinberger starts his discussion off with a topic that is all around us; information and how it is sorted.
Andrew Keen vs David Weinberger
Well Andrew Keen just keeps bumping up against my amateur ass. I hear him on NPR, read about him on blogs and on and on. I am kind of a little over his diatribe but I found this discussion between him and Weinberger of the Wall Street Journal.
I think it is one of the best debates thus far between Keen and anyone else. I think that Weinberger gives him a good run for his money. The debate about what the web and specifically web 2.0 means for the “old” economy has been going on since the rise of silicon valley in the 90′s. Telephone companies have cried, music has cried, advertising is crying, mass media is crying. So interesting that organizations are so scared of change. Why? Why do people not see change as something that is part of the dynamic existence of humanity. It is what makes it happen, it is what makes it fun.
Along that line check out this video from the Ted Conference by Tony Robins. I think that it is this inspiration, this emotion that has driven the internet for the past 20 years and is what frightens so much of the established communication economy. It doesn’t want emotion – it can’t control it – it doesn’t want amateurs definining the conversation – it can’t control it. This is the issue of today, this is the democracy of today. It is what makes me excited.
Everything is Miscellaneous Must be Important
I love to write reviews of books I have yet to read. I work too much. Anyway, if I could choose a mentor and a guru, his name would be Howard Rheingold. Howard and I have known each other since 1999 and when he goes gaga over a book, Everything is Miscellaneous, I am his echo chamber (and David Weinberger, another of my idols, is no slouch either) :
“It took me a while to get around to reading David Weinberger’s book, Everything is Miscellaneous, but when I finally did, boy howdy, did my head and the world get rearranged. He’s one of those few writers who makes simple and funny explanations of complex phenomena look easy. And he’s onto something important. It’s not just a new story and a big picture, it’s a new picture and a big story. I think he’s right that most knowledge has been structured and so many institutions has been arranged according to taxonomies and hierarchical file structures simply because we have been arranging knowledge for thousands of years, but we only got search engines recently. Search engines are not just search engines in Weinberger’s new picture, and tagging is not just tagging.”