Spreading the Word

What I love about this commercial is that it seems like peopleappear out of nowhere and magically know how to do the rest of the dance.  It is almost as if the dance is some sort of disease that spreads virally and is extremely contagious.

It must have been the same way when the printing press was created. Suddenly books were easier and cheaper to create, and the common man could have access to the printed material.

Printing PRess

This created a revolution that helped to make information more readily available to the masses. This information spread as virally as the dance in the YouTube clip.  The “Information Authorities” of the time felt threated because the common man no longer had to go to them to learn, he could simply read books on any subject he desired.

Although the printing press made books available to the masses, it didn’t realistically allow anyone to create those books. That still required time and resources.  But with the digital revolution of today, not only can everyone have access to information, but sites like wikipedia, blogger, wordpress, facebook and others allow everyone to create their own information as well. There are numerous parallels, it seems, between the creation of the printing press, and the creation of Web 2.0.

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