Andrew Keen
Andrew Keen (born circa 1960[1]) is a British-American entrepreneur, author, and self-proclaimed "leading contemporary critic of the Internet."[2]
Education
Keen was born in Hampstead, North London[3]. 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.
Education career
Keen has taught at Tufts University, Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts.[4]
Internet 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 and Wikipedia
Keen currently writes about media on his site thegreatseduction.com, which redirects to his blog. Keen also produces a podcast on AfterTV. His book The Cult of the Amateur, which is highly critical of free, user-based information-gathering Web sites such as Wikipedia, was published on June 5, 2007, by Doubleday Currency.[8] Praising Citizendium, a new project launched by Larry Sanger in 2006, he writes that the inclusion of editors with real names would be an improvement over user-generated content typical to Web 2.0.[citation needed]
On August 16, 2007, Keen appeared on The Colbert Report to talk about the book. When called an elitist, he replied, "What's wrong with that?". When asked by Colbert if the internet was worse than the Nazis, Keen's response was that "even the Nazis didn't put artists out of work."
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 He stated it "worships the creative amateur: the self-taught filmmaker, the dorm-room musician, the unpublished writer.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",[9] who he "particularly detests".[10]
Personal life
He currently lives in Berkeley, California, with his family.[11]
References
- ^ Saracevic, Alan T. (October 15, 2006). Debate 2.0 / Weighing the merits of the new Webocracy. San Francisco Chronicle (“Age: 46”)
- ^ Keen, Andrew. "About Andrew Keen".
Andrew is indeed the leading contemporary critic of the Internet.
- ^ Keen, Andrew presentation at Mahalo 2007-03-27
- ^ Keen, Andrew (2007-06-07). "Amateur Internet" (Interview). Retrieved 2008-03-23.
- ^ Andrew Keen bio
- ^ a b "Andrew Keen - .net magazine". Retrieved 2008-01-03.
- ^ About AfterTV
- ^ 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
- ^ Keen, Andrew (May 16, 2006). Web 2.0; The second generation of the Internet has arrived. It's worse than you think. The Weekly Standard
- ^ Keen, Andrew (2008-03-12). "Is the Web a Threat to Our Culture?". University of California at Berkeley School of Information, Distinguished Lecture Series Debate. Retrieved 2008-03-20.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Balicki, Robert (February 21, 2007).Blogging Berkeley. The Daily Californian
Further reading
- Andrew Keen's blog
- Andrew Keen on Colbert Report, August 16, 2007
- AfterTV podcast
- Audio of interview with Andrew Keen on NPR Weekend Edition, Saturday, June 16, 2007
- AudioCafe.com, circa 1998 via Internet Archive
- June 17th, 2007 interview
- Keen, Andrew (29 July, 2007). "The Cult of the Amateur: Is the internet eroding knowledge, wisdom, expertise and culture? A dotcom apostate says yes". The Independent. Retrieved 2007-08-09.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help); More than one of|author=and|last=specified (help) - Keen debates "Can we save the internet?" with Kevin Kelly at Jewcy.com
- Keen debates "Is today's internet killing our culture?" with Emily Bell at Guardian Unlimited August 10, 2007. (On his blog, Keen says he was "Walloped by Emily".)
- Sunday Times article on Cult of the Amateur
- Kim Cameron comments on Cult of the Amateur
- TV Interview on The Gregory Mantell Show
- Weinberger and Keen at PICNIC07 in Amsterdam, (video file) Weinberger's presentation is followed by discussion with Andrew Keen, moderated by Walt Mossberg of the WSJ.
- Panel discussion with David Weinberger and Andrew Keen during PICNIC07 (video file) moderated by Monique van Dusseldorp, Programme Director PICNIC.