The Good, the Bad,
And the 'Web 2.0'
July 18, 2007

The explosion of blogs, social networks and video-sharing sites has allowed any Internet user to become a journalist or filmmaker or music star. But is this democratization of information -- often called Web 2.0 -- the future of the Internet or a looming disaster?

The Wall Street Journal's Jamin Brophy-Warren invited the authors of two recent high-profile books on the subject to debate. Andrew Keen, who wrote "The Cult of the Amateur," argues the Web has become overwhelmed with useless noise. David Weinberger, author of "Everything is Miscellaneous," argues that Web 2.0 tools let users filter out irrelevant (or inaccurate) information. A condensed version of their discussion, carried out over email, is below. (You can read the full text here.)