Thoughts on Seth Godin’s “Digital Divide”
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Written By Reprise Media | May 9, 2005 | Share This
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Seth Godin has an essay on his blog titled The New Digital Divide that outlines a new set of criteria for the Internet “haves” and “have nots”, listing Firefox, RSS, and BoingBoing usage as key indicators of the Internet elite.
Some of the essay is spot on, other parts are pretty questionable.
First off, the choices on Godin’s handy-dandy chart aren’t really apt comparisons of the two populations. According to Godin, either you’re reading BoingBoing for entertainment or you’re stuck watching Leno with grandma. Not true. I have a number of friends who are crazy tech savvy but still haven’t gotten hip to BoingBoing, Metafilter, etc. They’re avid embracers of technology who simply haven’t been exposed to or don’t care to read the site.
Passively reading a web site isn’t the same as installing and using a RSS reader, it requires much less effort on the user’s part. Saying you’re a “have” because you read some super-hip-website that others don’t seems pretty silly and narrow-minded, reminiscent of the cool kid mentality talked about here.
I also disagree with Godin’s statement that, “Well, five years ago, geeks pretty much kept to themselves.” Really? What about geeks so self-promoting and so influential that they’ve become pop icons in and of themselves, names like Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, George Lucas, Bill Gates? Just because there’s a new medium of distribution doesn’t mean that these people did little to “influence the rest of the world outside the tech community,” as Godin says.
Topics: Open Source |
I understand the frustration, but I think Godin was being broad to prove a point. Either you’re hip to the Boing Boing worldview (not necessarily Boing Boing itself) and love to get news delivered directly to you OR you’re probably more likely to be watching Leno and thinking that RSS is some new disease that Chinese chickens carry.
Now, I don’t agree that it has to be either/or, but I think the blogosphere can insulate themselves by demonizing the mainstream. However, would it be as relevant if we didn’t cry foul so often? Hmm…