Wikinomics - A short rant (part 2)

Read part 1 here

According to Tapscott and Williams, the second way in which the internet is transforming news reporting is by allowing the internet user to be an editor of news content. Content sharing websites like Delicious and Digg enable users to receive customised feeds of news stories which they like. Tapscott and Williams argue that the collective logic of multiple web users is making the traditional role of editor obsolete, and they ask the question: Are the editors really in a position to best the collective judgement of their audience?

To answer this question I went over to Digg to have a look at what Digg users were Digging...















Perhaps I'm completely out of step here but what of the bombing of Gaza? Climate change? The global financial crisis?

I'm not saying I haven't already clicked on the sex shop story and sent it to all my friends (here's the link if you're interested). Like every other web user I'm all over twisted funny stuff like that. The point is that I need editors to save me from the trivia, and to force the more boring - yet undoubtedly more important - stuff down my throat.

PR of course loves the trivialisation of news. We thrive off pithy features, funny research and non-events. In this respect the phenomenon of user-as-editor will play into the hands of PR practitioners, provided they know what kind of stuff has internet mileage. A good place to start is to look at sites like Digg or Delicious to find out the features of a viral story. But none of this helps the case of mass collaboration as a reliable organiser of news and content - in the case of Digg, what we get is a peek into the grubby mind of the internet masses rather than a rewarding and informative news experience.

I don't believe that this particularly hurts the Wikinomics thesis. The book documents many cases where the principles of openness, peering, sharing and thinking globally have brought about staggering advances in business, technology and education. However, readers of Wikinomics should be careful not to get so caught up in the rhetoric to believe that mass collaboration makes absolutely everything better.