Having spent so long in the train system between Durham and Sheffield yesterday [noisy train, late train, no seats, no train], I managed to read nearly all of “The Cult of the Amateur: how today’s internet is killing our culture and assualting our economy” by Andrew Keen. I’d definitely recommend it, though I did feel a bit depressed afterwards. He talks about digital Darwinism, the survival of the loudest and most opinionated, and how with Web 2.0 the distinction between expert and amateur is much more difficult to distinguish. He predicts that if the situation continues, all expert, costly media will be swept away to the point that we’ll no longer have anyone to tell us any facts, so we’ll all be able to make up our own version of reality. In this view, the voice of the information literate minority will become smaller and smaller. There’s a very interesting discussion on issues surrounding Wikipedia too.

Meeting the locals in Dublin