No, not a Cannon...a Canon.
Here are 2 definitions that I like:
1: a rule or especially body of rules or principles generally established as valid and fundamental in a field or art or philosophy;
2. The collection of books received as genuine Holy Scriptures, called the {sacred canon}, or general rule of moral and religious duty, given by inspiration;
History has a canon. Anthropology has a canon. Most fields have those works which are considered indispensable or "must reads." Up until now, the 2.0 world has largely had a canon of definitions but Venkatesh Rao has blogged a post which starts to establish the case for a 2.0 canon of books. I know, seems a bit ironic to be proposing something as decidedly 1.0 as books as essential reference points for understanding 2.0 but
there ya go.
Over there on the right is Rao's visualization of this 2.0 canon - again with the irony of creating a visualization of text-based works. I think its a good start....can you hear the "BUT" coming?
Of course there are holes - the great pleasure is in finding the holes and proposing the works that will fill them. Here is my start [I'd love to hear/see your additions] (fair warning - I also include magazine articles):
The Wealth of Networks
As We May Think
The New Age of the Book
The Black Swan
Everything is Miscellaneous
The Social Life of Information
...now those are just the quick ones of the top of my head...help me with the rest......or is it just an exercise in futility to compile a list of static books that seek to describe such a dynamic phenom? Should we also have a canon for videos like The Machine is Us/Using Us, Did You Know? and anything from Common Craft? What about a canon of del.icio.us feeds or people to follow on Twitter - or does the definition of a canon reject such ephemera?




