Power is Shifting

Mar 12, 2008

By now most of you probably have heard about the SXSW keynote interview with Mark Zuckerberg. If you haven’t, here’s some links from Techmeme. From what I’ve read (I wasn’t there or on Twitter at the time, so my apologies if I’m wrong), is that the crowd ‘revolted’ against Sarah Lacy, the interviewer, heckling her and asking her to let them ask the questions.

There’ve been a really wide range of views on this, some in support of Sarah Lacy, and many – such as this – criticizing her.

And apparently, there’s been another revolt in SXSW.

But I wasn’t at either of them, so I’m not going to comment on what happened, or what went wrong.

I think the significant question, which Jeremiah Owyang asked, is this – Is power shifting? And that’s what I want to write about. My answer? Yes, definitely.

The whole basis of Web 2.0 is user generated content. It’s about placing power in the hands of the user, so everyone can have their say – so no one person has complete control.

Is it any wonder, then that that culture has spread to conferences as well? It was bound to happen, if you ask me.