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Keen currently writes about media on his site thegreatseduction.com, which redirects to his [[blog]]. Keen also produces a [[podcast]] on AfterTV.
Keen currently writes about media on his site thegreatseduction.com, which redirects to his [[blog]]. Keen also produces a [[podcast]] on AfterTV.

Keen's favorite quote while debating about the internet is: "Although I may suck, I stand by my judgement of the internet ruining culture!"


He is not without his critics on this. [[Tim O'Reilly]] has said "I find, Andrew Keen's, his whole pitch, I think he was just pure and simple looking for an angle, to create some controversy to sell a book, I don't think there's any substance whatever to his rants."<ref>{{cite video |title=The Truth According to the Wikipedia |time=38:30 |url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMSinyx_Ab0 |people=[[IJsbrand van Veelen]] }}</ref>
He is not without his critics on this. [[Tim O'Reilly]] has said "I find, Andrew Keen's, his whole pitch, I think he was just pure and simple looking for an angle, to create some controversy to sell a book, I don't think there's any substance whatever to his rants."<ref>{{cite video |title=The Truth According to the Wikipedia |time=38:30 |url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMSinyx_Ab0 |people=[[IJsbrand van Veelen]] }}</ref>

Revision as of 05:53, 12 January 2011

For the documentary filmmaker, see Andy Keen.
Andrew Keen in 2007
Andrew Keen eating social media cupcake at Oxford 2010

Andrew Keen (born circa 1960[1]) is a British-American entrepreneur and author. He is particularly known for his view that the Internet and Web 2.0 may be debasing culture, an opinion he shares with Jaron Lanier and Nicholas G. Carr among others. Keen is especially concerned that the Internet undermines the authority of learned experts.

Life

Keen was born in Hampstead, North London.[2] He earned a bachelor's degree in history from the University of London and then studied at the University of Sarajevo. He has earned a master's degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, studying under Ken Jowitt. Keen has taught at Tufts University, Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.[3] He currently lives in Berkeley, California, with his family.[4]

Career

Keen's Silicon Valley career began in 1995, with the founding of audiocafe.com,[5] which received funding from Intel and SAP. The firm folded in January 2000.[6] After the demise of audiocafe.com, Keen worked at Pulse 3D, SLO Media, Santa Cruz Networks, Jazziz Digital, Pure Depth and AfterTV, which he founded in 2005.[6][7]

Criticism of Web 2.0

In 2006 in an essay in The Weekly Standard, Keen wrote that Web 2.0 is a "grand utopian movement" similar to "communist society" as described by Karl Marx. He stated it "worships the creative amateur: the self-taught filmmaker, the dorm-room musician, the unpublished writer. It suggests that everyone — even the most poorly educated and inarticulate amongst us — can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves. Web 2.0 'empowers' our creativity, it 'democratizes' media, it 'levels the playing field' between experts and amateurs. The enemy of Web 2.0 is 'elitist' traditional media." He describes Free Culture proponent Lawrence Lessig as an "intellectual property communist".[8]

His book The Cult of the Amateur, was based on this essay. The book is critical of free, user-based Web sites such as Wikipedia that attempt to provide information, and was published on June 5, 2007, by Doubleday Currency.[9]

Keen discusses often-overlooked problems with participatory technology. He describes the internet in amoral terms, saying it is a mirror of our culture. "We see irreverence, and vitality, and excitement. We see a youthfulness. But we also see, I think, many of the worst developments in modern cultural life, and, in particular, I think we see what I call digital narcissism, this embrace of the self. It's Time magazine's person of the year for last year was you."[10]

Keen currently writes about media on his site thegreatseduction.com, which redirects to his blog. Keen also produces a podcast on AfterTV.

Keen's favorite quote while debating about the internet is: "Although I may suck, I stand by my judgement of the internet ruining culture!"

He is not without his critics on this. Tim O'Reilly has said "I find, Andrew Keen's, his whole pitch, I think he was just pure and simple looking for an angle, to create some controversy to sell a book, I don't think there's any substance whatever to his rants."[11]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Andrew Keen.
  1. ^ Saracevic, Alan T. (October 15, 2006). Debate 2.0 / Weighing the merits of the new Webocracy. San Francisco Chronicle (“Age: 46”)
  2. ^ Keen, Andrew presentation at Mahalo.com 2007-03-27
  3. ^ Keen, Andrew (2007-06-07). "Amateur Internet" (Interview). Retrieved 2008-03-23.
  4. ^ Balicki, Robert (February 21, 2007).Blogging Berkeley. The Daily Californian
  5. ^ Andrew Keen bio
  6. ^ a b "Andrew Keen - .net magazine". Retrieved 2008-01-03.
  7. ^ About AfterTV
  8. ^ Keen, Andrew (May 16, 2006). Web 2.0; The second generation of the Internet has arrived. It's worse than you think.
  9. ^ Keen, Andrew (2007). The Cult of the Amateur: How the Democratization of the Digital World is Assaulting Our Economy, Our Culture, and Our Values. Doubleday Currency, ISBN 978-0385520805
  10. ^ New Book Looks at the Internet's Impact on American Life, PBS Online Newshour
  11. ^ IJsbrand van Veelen. The Truth According to the Wikipedia. Event occurs at 38:30.

Further reading and media

The Virtual Revolution - BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/digitalrevolution/2009/10/rushes-sequences-andrew-keen-i.shtml

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