Small Pieces

• Na Web, toda fama é local.
• A Web é toda sobre grupos
• Conhecimento na Web é uma atividade social
• A Web nos devolve a nós mesmos
• A Web terá seu mais profundo efeito como uma idéia

In the book Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web, David Weinberger argues that, if anything, the World Wide Web hasn't been hyped enough. The importance of the Web, he writes, isn't about dotcom riches; it's about changing the way we behave. Here are his five essential theses:

1. On the Web, all fame is local.

Fame on the Web is similar to the nature of craftwork, reaching orders of magnitude fewer people than those who engage in mass manufacturing, but providing a type of focused celebrity: Local craftspeople are known in their communities for and by their work. On the Web, of course, the community is defined by interest, not geography, and there is no natural boundary around how large the circle of fame can grow. And there is an intimacy to Web fame not typically found in the world of crafts.

2. The Web is all about groups.

The Internet is the opposite of a hand grenade thrown into a market: It's almost as disruptive, but it brings people together rather than tearing them apart. People don't join the Internet just to send an email to this or that person. They join to participate in the hundreds of different ways people associate. In this new social clearing, types of associations are being created with a rapidity unequalled in our history. The Web is a hotbed of experimental couplings.

3. Knowledge on the Web is a social activity.

The Web is a hodgepodge of ideas that violates every rule of epistemological etiquette. Much of what's posted is wrong. It's expressed ambiguously. But it also returns knowledge to its roots in the heated arguments in the passageways of Athens. Knowledge is what happens when people say things that matter to them, others reply, and a conversation ensues. In many Web conversations, we've given up certainty. But certainty isn't a requirement for believing something.

4. The Web returns us to ourselves.

The Web is a powerful experience for many of us because it gives us a place free of what's been holding back our better selves. It shows us more purely the truths of our human experience. That's why it has excited our culture beyond any reasonable expectation: It helps to heal our alienation from our own experience. Its movement is toward human authenticity.

5. The Web will have its deepest effect as an idea.

Ideas don't explode; they subvert. They take their time. And because they change the way we think, they are less visible than a newly paved national highway or the advent of wall-sized TVs. After a while, someone notices that we're not thinking about things the way our parents did. The Web is entering the realm of our thoughts as a technology -- as a medium. But its message as a medium is, ultimately, matter doesn't matter.

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Small Pieces tries to explain what's behind the global excitement about this relatively simple bit of technology, the World Wide Web. Why is it affecting so many of us so deeply? Why has this set of digital tin cans and string sent an electric charge through our culture? The book explores the Web as an idea, just as you might try to understand the idea of democracy by looking at its effect on a constellation of other words: liberty, equality, citizen, authority, etc. Small Pieces looks at bedrock concepts the Web experience is altering, including self, group, space, time, perfection, knowledge and even reality. It finds that the Web is helping to clarify our understanding of ourselves, overcoming the alienating misunderstandings that have become taken-for-granted in the real world. [...] Why do we care about the Web? Not because of dot coms and online shopping. Something more important is happening. We're connecting. The Web is a social world free of so much that impedes our sociality that it reveals a clearer picture of our own human nature. In fact, it brings us to rethink some of our most basic assumptions about what it means to live in a world together. (...)

"Small Pieces Loosely Joined," by David Weinberger, which examines the human aspects and social networks that are driving much of the current excitement about the Internet. (...)