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The cult of the amateur

how today's internet is killing our culture

By Andrew Keen

(17)

| Others | 9780385523011

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Book Description

A Silicon Valley insider offers a provocative look at the dark side of the new digital revolution, Web 2.0, and its detrimental influence on modern-day culture, ...

Critics

The Cult of the Amateur

Keen was once a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, but has since undergone a Damascene conversion and now views the so-called Web 2.0 of YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia and millions of blogs as culturally corrosive. This is a celebration of traditional media a ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

Fretting about the internet

In its early days, the telephone was expected to be of most use in listening to musical concerts. If it had been, it would hardly have done much harm, despite its acoustic shortcomings: more people would have been attracted to live performances, havi ... (read full critics)

spectator published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

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4 Reviews

2 people find this helpful

Andrew Keen Interview

I don't agree with everything is on this book, but I sincerely believe we need more books like this to fully appreciate the extent, dangers, and consequences of the web2.0 revolution.
On July 13, 2007 I had the pleasure and the honor to interview Andrew Keen for the Novedge blog. Here is the l ... (continue)

I don't agree with everything is on this book, but I sincerely believe we need more books like this to fully appreciate the extent, dangers, and consequences of the web2.0 revolution.
On July 13, 2007 I had the pleasure and the honor to interview Andrew Keen for the Novedge blog. Here is the link:
http://blog.novedge.com/2007/07/an-interview--2.html

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Franco Folini said on Jul 9, 2007 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

Thought-provoking & short-sighted.
While there are quite a few good ideas in there, it seems tainted by nonsense such as "every single song download is a lost album sale", and "amateur music and videos on YouTube and MySpace are entirely to blame for every music and video store that closes". ... (continue)

Thought-provoking & short-sighted.
While there are quite a few good ideas in there, it seems tainted by nonsense such as "every single song download is a lost album sale", and "amateur music and videos on YouTube and MySpace are entirely to blame for every music and video store that closes". Of course, these statements are preposterous, and it is quite unfortunate that Mr. Keen feels the need to hide behind these, because otherwise, he brings interesting ideas to the table.

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ericsamson said on Sep 21, 2008 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

Disappointing

There are many problems with the current rhetorics and practices of "Internet culture", but getting rid of the "good old times" is not one of them. Unfortunately, that's all this book seems to be obsessed with.

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Andrea said on Jan 23, 2012 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback