On 10 Zen Monkeys, RU Sirius interviews David Weinberger, author of Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder.
RU: The order is found by the end user. A friend of mine has a business and his slogan is “living ala Carte”. That seems to be kind of what we’re doing with information, and so many other things.DW: Yes, but when you order ala carte, everybody orders individually, based upon their tastes. I wouldn’t want to leave it there! The most exciting and important advances in how we’re making sense of this miscellaneous soup is that we’re doing it socially. We’re doing it through social networks; through recommendations from our friends, from sites that do that more formally; and from what shows up in our inbox. So this is not the Daily Me constituting the world based on our own individual interests. It’s the “Daily Bunch-of-Us.” It’s loosely defined groups of people making this happen.
RU: So this is not the wisdom of the individual or the wisdom of the crowds, but the wisdom of small social networks?
DW: Yeah. It’s the wisdom of the group. The crowd actually turns out to be quite lumpy. We know some people better… I know that this person over here is really useful and knowledgeable about FCC rulings, but I wouldn’t ask about cars! But this other person loves talking about cars.
