The early ideal of the web was read/write. That is, it would be as easy to contribute to a page as it would to consume. Early adopters were slightly Utopian believing the end of 'big media' was imminent and a new age of personal expression - to be inevitably followed by a new age of personal freedom - was there for the taking.
This idea turned sour, though, as big media reasserted itself and convinced most users that the internet, this symmetrical masterpiece, was just another broadcast medium and the best way to enjoy it was to simply consume. Large corporations like the BBC (with some notable exceptions), Warner Brothers, News International and newcomers such as AOL and Yahoo! were focused on pushing content into the users' living rooms with the complicity of Microsoft and its Internet Explorer.
You can't keep a good idea down, though, and as the 20th century faded, blogs started appearing and companies like Blogger, later bought by Google, LiveJournal and SixApart started giving users the opportunity to talk amongst themselves and, most revolutionary, to talk to the rest of the world.
Blogs proliferated but it was Facebook (which distilled the blog down to a short status update) and YouTube which really convinced mainstream users that they could be creative and reach an audience, no matter how small. These two sites are still a major force in personal creativity, but they're causing a problem for the rest of the media.
Who would have thought that sitting down and discussing stuff with friends across the world would be more interesting than watching The Bill, Big Brother and the ads in between? And who would have thought that watching someone doing a finger dance to Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger would be more enjoyable than Daft Punk's own (very good) video?
Now most laptops come with cameras, card readers, ports, microphones, software and everything else that makes creating content a doddle. Should the urge strike you, you can now design your own newspaper (you can even print it), write a novel, make a porn film from Lego, write and release your own song, tell the world how annoyed you are about the plastic slick in the Atlantic and, crucially, convince others to join you in some small act of direct action. It's not much, but it's the promise of Berners-Lee's read/write web. Read, Watch, Listen and Respond.
Consume no more, go forth and create!
And so to Apple's recently release iPad. I watched the introduction presentation with anticipation about how this new magic slate would enable even greater levels of personal expression, especially in education. But what turned up was quite literally closed off to the outside world. No card readers for your camera, no camera for your impromptu version of Bohemian Rhapsody, no microphone to capture your rants.
Barely anything that can't be consumed through Apple's growing collection of iStores. Music, books, films, games, software all available from a single source. Apple says what you can do, see, listen to; and Apple is a control freak. It's also a fluffy liberal* corporation that will skim off 30 per cent of every transaction that goes through its stores.
Of course, it's a lovely looking thing that might transform your consumer habits. But it is the absolute opposite of the way the internet has been travelling for the last 10 years. We risk giving away the creativity and access we've achieved in the rush to buy something elegant. John Naughton suggested in The Observer that we might sleepwalk into an Orwellian society through the techno-equivalent of Huxley's Soma.
Reading Naughton's critique actually brought up a different image for me, and that was the humans in Wall-E (a film ironically made by Pixar - CEO: Steve Jobs) who are doomed to consume while the world falls apart around them and their bodies grow ever fatter. In fact, you'll see they're carrying around iPad's around with them. Though obviously this is the iPad 10gSDX Plus.
The iPad may be the last gasp of the old media, but if there's no alternative, or users can be convinced by a seamless user experience that seamlessly pushes content and offers no option to respond, then our communications revolution will be stolen again.
* I think I meant to write rapacious capitalist there?
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