Annually Time Magazine puts out an article about their pick for Person of the Year. This can be anyone who Time feels has made a huge difference on the world and in 2006 the choice was us! More accurately, it is what we as a worldwide population have done on the internet. "We're looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it's just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy." The productivity and innovation is happening all over the internet, creativity and facts running rampant. Never before has there been a stage where so many people can be heard. I agree that this Web 2.0, as some call it, is a huge advantage to the common person. Grossman talks about how companies are able to hold contests to design new products and how some are even challenged by the ability for everyday people to create a better product.
This argument of facts had a very positive overall look on what the internet is capable of creating and becoming. I feel like the negative aspects of this new creation are not something that will ever go away. People will always have negative comments and abuse the power of the Web 2.0 simply to hurt other people. I do not like the idea that it is akin to an experiment that can fail. I believe it is a tool, a way for people to do great things but that can also fall into the wrong hands. I do not think the Web will ever fail, I simply think it will evolve and improve.
I like the way the article read to me; it felt like it was almost sentimental, as though he was talking about something he had had a very direct hand in creating. Maybe in some ways he wants us to all feel this way. The Web 2.0 is, after all, a creation that allows anyone to point to and say "I helped make that what it is today."
