The Rise of the Junkweb and Why It's So Awesome 181
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Have you noticed your Facebook stream or looked at reddit lately? A huge chunk of what goes by lately are photos with text over them, usually quotes about this or that. 'It's the Junkweb,' writes Chris Brogan. 'Why "junk?" Because the original intent of the Internet was that links were gold, that searchability was key, that this ability to find anything and use resources from wherever was magic. And this new web? The web of pictures with text over them? They're junk. They're a dead end. The picture is the payload.' Facebook and Pinterest are doing what so much of our 'awesome' tech hasn't been able to do well: let the everyperson into this universe. For whatever reason, the 'photos with text' experience gives us that feeling we get when we read magazines. 'It makes the texty text of blogging a lot less stark. It draws our eyes in. It's fast to consume, and it brings an emotional response faster.' Now with the release of Google's Panda search technology, it has been acknowledged that links and pages aren't everything and with Google+ goes the realization that it's no longer a links-only world. who shares is as important as how it's shared. 'I'm spending far more time on the Junkweb than I am on the Smartweb,' concludes Brogan. 'Deny it, if you want. The numbers show otherwise. We are in love with this new method of interacting.'"
In general, I HATE it, but LOVE it (Score:5, Interesting)
Bla Bla Bla.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The author can wax poetic all over it. I think it's worthless garbage. So much so that I now filter my facebook stream and have it hide anything posted by friends that has the word "Shared" in it or "Liked" in it.
I personally look at this new trend as proof that Facebook has jumped the shark like MySpace did. so the next big Exodus is about to happen to the next social website service....
Indicative of how we use the web (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure invention of the new catchphrase "Junkweb" was necessary. It's subjective after all - one man's junk is another man's treasure. I'm also not sure the new phenomenon of text-on-picture is all that big a deal - when people get sick of it, the trend will die out. I'm old school by most measures - born in the early 70s, grew up on a Commodore Pet and later C64, remember Gopher and Telnet, etc. But I think the stuff getting floated on Reddit is pretty funny, and it makes me laugh.
If there's anything worth talking about at all, it's not the rise of something someone calls a "Junk Net," it's how the utopian promise of the Internet - liberated conversation, connection, and access to information - has been somewhat diluted by lots of other stuff, and as more and more people have gotten connected their tastes have swayed the general trend of what's on the web.
I've got a forum that runs on Usenet era technology (http://dictatorshandbook.net/ [dictatorshandbook.net] and it's not exactly been a blistering success. People find usenet and even the web-based front end to it to be too "texty" and dry. They want pictures and LOLcats and stupid memes. OK, fair enough - that's not the audience I'm trying to attract, and the folks that are interested in educated conversation about dictators will probably enjoy my site and its text forum while everyone else will go bugger off.
So if there's an issue here, it's just that increasingly people go to the internet not for information but for entertainment, and the companies have teed up to make that happen - look at the ipod ferfucksake, now I can watch TV in bed! YAY! I think this is a failure of society over all, not of technology.
Fact is, there are good, knowledge-intensive sites out there. Go hang out on them if that's what you want. And if you want a good laugh, enjoy the latest meme. It's all good.
Re:junkweb has always been there (Score:4, Interesting)
1990's people used to email this crap to each other. stupid pictures and the dumb dancing baby animation
with the rise of facebook and other social networking people share this crap and its more viral. and the sites that carry it found a way to monetize on the junk
And before the internet it was all done with photocopiers, fax machines, (to a much lesser extent) VCRs and (even more rarely) BBSs. People used to keep binders full of these things at their desks. Before photocopiers showed up it was done via mimeograph, and one assumes that before that people were tracing boobs through eight layers of carbon paper.
Just as porn is at the forefront of all consumer technology, any office technology gets immediately co-opted for cartoons, kittens and breasts.