Information Sharing Evolved

In Fred Turner's, Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy article, he details the evolution of the online community and how it began with a small periodical publication and grew into social networking as we know it today with MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The Whole Earth Catalog was a place for hippies in the 60s to exchange reviews on products and bits of information that related to their interests and ideals. This evolved to the WELL that would take this idea that lacked in the way of staying up to date and thrusting it into a world of instantaneous communication among users that were geographically distant from one another.

Another thing that came to my mind when reading this was how nowadays we have online forums where we post on topics of conversation and through these threads interact with one another on a certain idea. I draw on my own experience because before Facebook, the way I interacted with people that shared my own interests was on a Taking Back Sunday fan forum, where we would discuss our favorite albums, or deconstructing a song that was particularly powerful in the way of the lyrics and how the song was composed musically. The people on this forum were the mega-fans and certainly not those that would be considered fans by merely just listening to their latest single that they heard on the radio. The counterculture of the Taking Back Sunday fan base can be seen in the same relation as the users of the WELL in the 1980s, and it is that shared experience that drives online communities.

A Web of Virtual Communities

In modern society, digital technology is in widespread use across the many scattered members of our culture. Digital technologies, such as online social network sites, are available for anyone looking to belong to any particular kind of community. In Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy, by Fred Turner, two early social network forums, the Whole Earth Catalog and WELL, are examined to understand how the consciousness of society in regards to technology, information, and commerce has transformed. Turner claims WELL has established the countercultural ideal that technology provides us with a nonhierarchical social order where geographically dispersed individuals could experience a shared mindset. The virtual community instituted by WELL has set the path for online social interactions and networking sites that have followed its design.

One virtual community, Yet to Know, has a very similar design to WELL since there are community categories from which members can choose to become a part of. Just to list a few there are restaurants, food, night-life, shopping, automotive… The list goes on. You can also click on a city to find people and conversations. There are no privacy settings as there is with Facebook as all members are free to comment in any community category.

What I found most interesting when researching different virtual communities is not the standardization of their design but rather how one virtual community is now recruiting members from another that is ironically in competition with them. Yet To Know is one example that pairs with Facebook and Twitter to connect people with similar interests. Its tag line: socialize with like-minded people in Iowa City. It knows where one is located (locality is an advancing characteristic of digital technology nowadays) and aims to build an online community with those near and far, depending on what the user is looking for, by combining multiple networks.

Recruitment of members from Facebook was also seen recently in the launch of an unknown online dating site, Lovely-Faces.com. This time without permission. The site recently scraped 250,000 names, locations, and photos, from publicly accessible Facebook pages and categorized individuals into personality types using face-recognition technology. As you may assume the Facebook team and its members were not happy with the stunt and plan on taking appropriate legal action. If you want to read more check out this article...

The Future of Social Networking

Fred Tuner’s “Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy” discusses the use of the Whole Earth Catalog as an originator WELL or the Whole Earth Lectronic Link. The Whole Earth Catalog was served as a medium in which users would share their critiques about new technologies they’ve used. However, this was done through a magazine and took several months to be published. The WELL was later introduced and served as more than an upgraded version of the magazine. The WELL allowed people to connect and communicate their ideas from any location. Turner argues that the WELL united technology and society while simultaneously aiding the progression of both-possibly producing the first social networking site.
This article also reminded me of Facebook and MySpace. The evolution of social networking has drastically expanded over the past several years. Now it’s rare if someone isn’t on Facebook or has never “tweeted” and now in the business world, “LinkedIn,” to various networks. I feel that the social aspect of society heavily depends on the involvement and use of social networks because they are widely used by all ages. The use of the basic principle of social networking has expanded from social networking to business and dating networking sites. Recently, social networking has gone one step further as some news publications have given sole credit to social networking sites for igniting revolution in Cairo, Egypt. Revolutionists are using technology to their advantage, organizing protests and demonstrations. I think this is telling of the future uses of social networking.

Countercultural Facebook

In his article, "Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy", Fred Turner describes the beginnings of virtual communities and network forums in the form of Whole Earth Catalog and WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link). These two products shaped the way social media has transformed into what we understand today as Facebook and Twitter.

The Catalog was introduced in the 1960s as a magazine-type medium where people could view and review products, but not actually purchase them through the catalog. Turner explains the catalog as the first experience of social networking as "it offered a venue in which members of multiple geographically dispersed groups could communicate with one another". By the 1980s, the framework of the Catalog was put online in the appearance of WELL. According to Turner, "WELL became a forum within which information exchange, community building and economic activity took place simultaneously". Although similar to the Catalog, WELL was more efficient because of its instantaneous structure and because it was always available.

While reading this article, I could not help but compare WELL to Facebook, as I'm sure most people did. Although WELL and Facebook have different purposes and objectives for their users, they are both places where people can completely lose themselves in the online activity of posting information and using instant messaging. The two sites are also similar in that they both use their information as a commodity for production, which Facebook has recently jumped into with their sponsored stories.

However, forums such as Whole Earth Catalog and WELL began as ways for people to partake in counterculture, such as the New Communalists in the 1960s, who wanted to "return to a more emotionally authentic and community-based way of life". By participating in these forums, they went against what they saw as the mainstream bureaucratic lifestyles of America as they called for change.

Yet, isn't Facebook, which you could argue is based off of the Catalog and the WELL, one of the most mainstream aspects of our current society? Over 500 million people around the world are active users on Facebook, with the terms 'chatting' and 'liking' taking on whole new meanings because of it. As one blogger suggests, he is participating in counterculture by not becoming addicted to Facebook.

Counterculture Ideas are now Mainstream

It is amazing to me that an idea of community evolved from a paper form to what we have come to expect with today's Internet activities. My brother was not even alive when these people were in communes and make a better community for everyone, but today he is in their world on the Internet daily. Like many other Americans living on the computer in the late 90s to early 00s, my brother played video games that create worlds away from real life. These worlds featured "clans" or communities that brought Americans from every walk of life together. I have met some of his friends and they all seem to be what I will call "Internet hippies." My brother, like most of his friends, now have children that are growing up with some ideas that evolved from the counterculture. For example, the idea of hierarchy is largely not supported by members of the counterculture and today these kids largely do not believe in a hierarchy of authority. They do not see how anyone can possess authority over them, be it their parents, the police, or whomever. The problem with this is that the new generation is going to be at odds with every generation since the baby boomers - the counterculture may have had a following but it was not in the main stream. As time goes on though more and more opponents will die off and perhaps more ideas like community and denial of hierarchy will become even more main stream. It seems to me that Facebook, Twitterhttp://twitter.com/, and these video game networks will contribute even more so to this phenomena.

New product reviews available from Friends on Facebook

In Fred Turner’s, “Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy”, the Whole Earth Catalog is described as being a magazine the allowed individuals to write in and critique or suggest whatever technology they had recently come across. The individuals could respond to one another when each of the new catalogs came out, but Turner explained that the downside of this was that the response to one another was not instantaneous. Instead, it would take months for the responses to reach the individuals because they had to wait for the new catalog to come out. Also the Whole Earth Catalog was a place for individuals to rate products, not a place for them the buy these products so there was no immediate money, besides the cost of the magazine, coming from producing this catalog. Next, WELL was introduced on an online form. This allowed the responses to others to be instantaneous and also allowed individuals that did not even know each other to become connected.
The site created by WELL instantly made me think of the social networking sites that we have today. First, in my decade, MySpace was the most used social networking site. Next came Facebook, which is still a very popular networking site. And of course, the most recent networking site is Twitter. Since I no longer have MySpace and also do not have a Twitter account, I will relate Turner’s article to Facebook. I use Facebook to stay connected with people I know, and even people I do not know. I am able to stay informed on individual’s lives while also learning their opinions of the newest movie, newest phone, newest technology, or other commodities individuals think are important to share with their friends.

The Taste of Local Opinions

Fred Turner writes in his essay, “Where the Counterculture Met the New Economy,” about the emergence of the “network forum.” He discusses the Whole Earth Catalog as a precursor for the WELL, or the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link.’ The WELL, as he describes it is a place where journalist Howard Rheingold was able to, “converse with friends and colleagues, meet new people, and over time build relationships.” He also writes about the emergence of the Catalog as a “network forum.” By this he writes that the Catalog featured listings for items to buy with a brief review and gave information on where and how to acquire it.

I relate this concept of the Catalog to the concept of Rotten Tomatoes, or reviews of a product on say Barnes and Noble.com. People are given a reflexive venue where they can share opinions on products, experiences of bad films or customer service. When I first came to the university years ago I tried looking for a local BBQ place to eat, sure enough I was able to find the best one in town just from entering BBQ in Iowa City into Google. This idea of a network forum gives users access to voice their opinions, and small businesses with great products or food are often greatly rewarded without having to lift a finger. I try to never purchase particularly pricy items without first consulting online reviews because of the network forum.

Published by Mike Anderson