Martin,
Your description of Sherlock 2 reminds me of the ideal of the "rational
subject purchasing in a free market". You know that line they tend to give
you about capitalism in the micro-economic textbooks.
My step father fits this mold rather well. He uses the phone calling store
after store to find the cheapest or best deal on a product. But, many of us
don't do that. Maybe I just don't fit the capitalist ideal but I form an
affective relationship to the stores I purchase from. These portals have
certain benefits because they speak to (or exploit) that human need for
community.
The 3 C's are actually content, commerce, and community. I said new because
the old ones were commerce, christianity, and colonialism. For me, the
internet offers many affordances as Ricardo shared that would not be
possible otherwise. I do however assume that cultural tools always have an
irreducible tension as outlined by Wertsch.
I agree with you that new technology is going to change how we use the
internet, but I see it in the opposite direction that you have shared.
These mergers taking place are not just verticle but horizontal the
AOL-TIMEWARNER merger literally controls part of every information outlet
there is. They have capital in magazines, TV, cable, print, radio, and the
internet. Bill Gates has stepped down as CEO to devote full time to the R&D
of the internet division.
Ken mentioned the misinformation that was out there. For me that pointed to
not only the constraints of the medium but a call for action. Too often the
left hides behind its scientific studies while the right embraces the
technology to make its case to "civil society". I guess my point is like any
technology we should not view it romantically but critically and
politically.
Nate
-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Owen [mailto:mowen@rem.bangor.ac.uk]
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2000 10:52 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: RE: The internet and disinformation
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
>They now talk of the new "3 C's" - commerce, communication, and community
>-
>in that one's subjectivity is not in oppossition to commerce but essential
>for the commerce to take place. So, yes your right that commerce has not
>squelched these other voices because by embracing those voices they are
>guaranteed future profits. Those subjectivities are very much pots of
>gold
>because any portal without a vibrant community will lose advertising $'s
>and
>partnerships with their "family of services".
The going rate, as I understand it, 1000 dollars of capitalisation a
subscriber. The value and accuracy of this figure has obviously got to go
a long way to be validated. As I have sufggested earlier, portlas will
only be of commercial value until we have good enough "agent technology".
As a mac user , Sherlock 2 already fetches me comparative prices (eg for
books), and obviates the need to visit a specific search engine/commerce
site/portal. Its just a short step to good agent technology. No matter how
"hot" your domain name, it will be valueless under that new technological
regime.
To visit a site in future you will need a good reason to go there, so
content and community may win in the end.
In the same way I read the finance pages for the politics they teach me...
do look at "Red Herring" or at least their web site (know thine enemy).
martin O
(In an optimistic mood)
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