I met another elder of the Internet yesterday. Her Majesty invited me to attend the launch of the new monarchy website along with Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
Without the work of Sir Tim, Matt Cain would not have been able to launch a pithy attack on Neal Lawson’s Compass and Derek Draper would not be able to defend himself against big media.
The blogs of Matt and Derek illustrate two of the three points I made at Labour’s bloggers breakfast yesterday. I said that the three key points for political parties to understand about web 2.0 technologies were:
1. Web 2.0 represents the ultimate democratisation of self-expression. We are all publishers now.
2. We can now communicate to more people than ever before at next to no cost.
3. Groups can come together around shared values, issues and concerns with very low barriers to entry.
That’s allowed Matt to make his political debut on a blog and Derek to stand up to the Guardian in a way he couldn’t have done a decade ago. It makes life a little more interesting.
