The reports are true and have been screaming around the interwebs faster than people digg the newest bomb from The Huffington Post: Digg.com is not as “socially” driven as people would like to believe.
This, personally, doesn’t surprise me one bit, the fact that 46% of ‘Front Page’ Diggs come from some 50 or so sites.
It’s because the vast majority of websites and “social news” sites are still, at their fundamental level, a business. Meaning, they have a business model. Meaning, they make money.
To enable the most ROI, the “business” most have a metered level of control over their product and service. That’s just how it is. So as much as you’d like to think that web technology has enabled 100% true and unfiltered democratic usage, it’s just not the case.
But I think this is where the Church can innovate and prove the traditional web-model wrong. That’s because we assume a level of control already and we don’t have to necessarily fabricate it or exhibit a false-sense of chaos and democracy in order to “preach” social web egalitarianism.
We will always have the Scriptures as our guidepost and control point. His Kingdom isn’t democratic but He’s enabled His people to be creative and innovative within the structure of the Word.
And therein lies “freedom.”
Our goal is not fame nor fortune. Our desire is to create community with God and with each other. That’ll provide the breadth and depth of innovation that a business-model could never touch.
The future is bright for the Church online.