Internet 101

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.