Web 2.0 and Group Therapy

April 19, 2006

Kathy Sierra writes about the differences between “an architecture of participation” and “Sharing.” The first contributes content that we can benefit from. The second seems to be sharing too much information about our private lives. She pleas with those doing Web 2.0 to not let “harnessing the collective intelligence” become a place for group therapy. I think she puts forth a good argument and raises a good concern about how something beneficial can also feed something that is not so beneficial. As one of my collegues has said recently, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

I encourage you to visit Kathy’s article on the Creating Passionate Users blog. She has an interesting chart that shows the scary similarities between group therapy and Web 2.0.