Lodwick Announces LodWeb 3.0

I generally try to avoid all the Jakob Lodwick drama. I only exchanged words with the guy once back in 2005 when he was starting Vimeo. He struck me as someone who was enthusiastic about new web technologies and self-confident enough to share his life with the unwashed masses of the Internet. It seems like he’s rubbed a lot of people wrong over the years, but something about the way people have treated  him worries me. I’m not claiming to have anything in common with the guy, but I know I put myself out there a lot. I suppose I just worry that a similar fate could someday befall me.

corcarpemei:

jakoblodouche:

Dear The Internet,

I closed my blog on June 26, 2008. I could no longer handle the relentless, vicious, public attacks from a digital lynch mob towards the personality traits I have no intention of changing, such as my curiosity and my self-confidence.

If the Web is to flourish, we cannot count on the good will of the public. The combination of anonymity and universal access means no individual can fully feel safe opening up. The Web itself (the technology) has a vast and unrealized potential. Until we create fundamentally new types of Web sites which value privacy on a fundamental level, the web risks collapsing into a cesspool of YouTube comments and ad-based gossip-hate sites.

When I say “privacy”, I mean in the sense of private property, as in, “No Trespassing”.

I am walking away from what might be called The Social Web. This comprises any site where ‘anyone can sign up’ and electronically socialize with one another. The story is the same with most of these sites: a few settlers discover it and make themselves at home, enjoying the solitude. Increasingly, less-adventurous people find their way to the site. The population begins to snowball. A vocal minority of thoughtless jerks begin to speak up, driving away the settlers. In the worst case, the result is something like MySpace.

I have been an active participant in The Social Web since the 1990s and now it is time for me to leave. I desperately need to socialize on the Web, but the right tools do not exist yet. I now intend to start building them.

If you’re interested in following my progress, keep an eye on JakobLodwick.com. I will simply post stuff there.

Sincerely,

Jakob Lodwick

via Jakob Lodwick

In summary, Lodwick the Elite has denounced the social web as a world where mob rule runs wild and consequently, nothing good can ever come of it. So in the good name of Internet, Lodwick has taken it upon himself to reforge the web into a walled garden of sorts where presumably only those who delight the oligarchs of his new web can exist.

Remember people, Lodwick is a millionaire so he can rebuild the Internet. He has the ego. He has the entrepreneurial prowess to make the world’s first oligarchal web. LodWeb 3.0 will be that network. Better than it was before. More bullshit, fewer voices, more narcissism. LodWeb will know better than you.