The unemotional web?

When, in an earlier post, Bob Ellsworth talked about the lack of emotional capacity of the Internet, it set me a-pondering. I've been in the online field a fair time (10 years-ish), and I wondered firstly whether the Internet really is unemotional and whether it has worsened over time or improved. I mean, before business really took a hold of it, it was all about finding information, making new connections and communicating. It felt emancipating, educational, uplifting; it really did make the world a smaller and friendlier place. (Of course, back then it didn't feel so crowded!). It was emotional because we appreciated the opportunities it offered us, we saw it expanding our horizons.

Today the online arena reflects the best and the worse of society, business and I guess charity. No longer operating in its own bubble, it represents society at large and with it the ethics and spirit of the times. More cynical times.

I don't believe it is any less emotional today than 10 years ago, or that it presents any less excitement and opportunity (all opportunities being what you make of them). What I think has changed that fundamentally affects the emotionality of the web is the way in which we publish on it.  Back in those early days everything was more direct, spontaneous and conversational; words and ideas came forth much as they existed in people's heads. They weren't edited and edited again and reviewed and polished offline before even reaching a web page. That's why Tim Berners Lee says that blogging is much more in line with his original idea of the world wide web as a mesh or net connecting people through thoughts and information shared in milliseconds. He didn't see it as a sales board or a set of presentation slides. He saw it first and foremost as a social tool.

I think this is something we have forgotten, or been made to forget, as commercialisation and consumerism have stolen the floor and taken centre stage. Until now? To me the wave of social networking sites and their huge popularity are a welcome sight - they are a sign of the world wide web reviving its origins.

Charities, in trying to respond to the prevailing trends of the Internet, have over-egged publishing and under-nourished the need to connect and communicate (through things like email, feedback, user involvement and networks). This is born out by the results of Virtual Promise 2006 (more anon). Their sites grow in number and grow veritable content paunches whilst we seldom see them out joining the rallies that the web does throw up from time to time. Our cynical social and work ethic has persuaded them to pull back the reins and tread cautiously, where they should be stretching their vocal chords, exciting all their old (and new) passions and speaking and acting from the heart.