Jeremiah Owyang

I think that technically this is old stuff with new names. However, I also think something is different and that’s the new tools that do lower the barrier to entry and let everyone participate. It’s not about the technology or what it’s called, it’s about using the technology.
As for calling it “noobcasting”, I don’t think the term generally applies. It doesn’t matter if you are a noob or a pro at publishing content on the web, using the tools that are now available makes it easier for everyone. Noobcasting to me, would be more appropriate for people that are “casting” about subjects they are new to, not people that are new to the technology they used to do the casting.

I think there are 2 related but distinct types of amateur to consider. One is the “casting” amateur (i.e. someone with little pod casting, blogging, web, etc… technical understanding). The significance being that now there is an easy way for these amateurs to publish content on the web in various ways with the potential of reaching a large audience. In this case the fact that someone is an amateur is not an issue if they have some expertise in their chosen topic.

The second type of amateur is the “topic” amateur (i.e. someone with little experience or knowledge about the topic they are casting about). The significance here is that it does not matter if someone is an amateur or an expert when it comes to being able to publish a “cast” if they are an amateur in the topic they are casting about.

In rereading your original post I think you raise several questions each of which may have merit as an individual blog entry.

Hi Jeremiah.

I have over 20 years experience in information technology and yet I’m not a developer. I really look at things more from the user experience perspective. So a couple of observations from that angle.

I happen to agree with your irate friend – none of the ‘technology’ behind these tools is new. But to your point the experience of engaging with the technology is. So your young friend is finding himself in the same position that mainframe developers did when we went from mainframe to client-server technologies. Now all the sudden everyone became and ‘expert’ at technology because yippee they could get on and write an email or open a spreadsheet. Mainframe guys looked down their noses at users and said ‘noob’ – because you know they had been doing command line email and calculations for years so big deal right?

Seems like the same thing here again – all the sudden we’re seeing technology do another shift. We don’t really need sophisticated knowledge to publish a website- we can do it with wizards online. Heck with google’s spreadsheet, Microsoft’s Live strategy, and Apple’s take on technology, we don’t even need to install tools local to computers, we’ll just use it on internet (if you make that leap of faith and trust them with your data).

But all of this ease in my opinion comes with a heavy price- maybe one that the ‘noob’ phrase hints at: noise. Now anyone can easily create online spaces using these tools and broadcast to the world. They can pretend they are someone with expertise that the world needs to hear and just pop it out there. Unlike journalism there are not enforced rules around the validity of content. Unlike corporate, controlled IT spaces there is no ‘approval’ of the message.

So from my perspective the ‘noob’ element here is more about the child-like fascination with the new toy rather than the actual value it brings to our lives – personally or professionally.

And yeah there is likely some frustration from developers because it used to take their skills to put something online and now any 10-year old could do it without much trouble.

Just my humble thoughts. -Bob

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