Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations

Here's a great talk by the always compelling Clay Shirky.

One of the key concepts I took away from it was this quote from Clay:

Every URL is a latent community. Which is to say: in addition to the value of having an individual being exposed to a resource that's available on the internet, there's additional value to be gotten by introducing those users to one another.

Craigslist

Interesting quote from an article about Craigslist in the Jan 16, 2006, New York magazine:

During the transit strike, Scott Anderson, a blogger for the Tribune Company, noticed with sadness that the ride-share space on Newsday.com, a Tribune holding, was empty while Craigslist was going crazy with offers. “Yet another crisis and Craigslist commands the community,” he wrote. “How come Craig organically can touch lives on so many personal levels—and Craig’s users can touch each other’s lives on so many levels? It’s just frustrating that even when we [newspapers] try, we more often than not find we are absolutely losing what may be one of the most important parts of the business as it more and more moves online—the ability to connect people to one another and to activate conversations. To not just be the deliverer of news and information . . . but the catalyst of connection.”

Some of this could apply to libraries, too. Libraries are too slow to respond to its users' needs and changing expectations. So, they go elsewhere. Libraries used to be physical places for interaction and conversation. Now that our users have gone online, they have become "invisible users" and libraries have lost some of that "community" and "catalyst" role. Librarians have not built or provided similar virtual space.

BTW, the full article is at http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/internet/15500/index.html