Last October I had the chance to hear Robert Putnam, the Bowling Alone guy, speak in front of a small audience and, as it transpired, to ask a question at the end of his talk. I blogged about some initial thoughts before his talk and after.
I wish someone would sit down with this, admittedly influential, guy and actually show him the sort of things that people are using the internet for. In an interview for BBC News Online today he said:
“I think the jury is still out on whether the internet is going to be a kind of nifty telephone, that it is some device that we use for making connections with other real people that we know in other contexts, or a nifty television, that is yet one more screen in front of which we sit more or less passively.”
Well mate, it’s both. It’s a communications tool and a distribution network. But, because they are both in the same place now, it means that communications, and community, can be wrapped around distributed content.
But I’m not going to bash the guy (again) because he also admits that:
“Using the internet to make new connections that you then meet in real life – that’s very positive.”
Communications tool. Distribution network. Infrastructure for community building. Whatever you want to call it, the internet is what it’s users make, or don’t make, of it.