Online conservation

Charles Leadbeater - he of We-Think fame - has a piece in this week’s Spectator called ‘The web is the most conservative force on Earth‘.

Given the publication this article was appearing in, I wasn’t sure where it was going, but it turned out to be all about archiving:

Archiving is not regarded by most people as sexy, glamorous or even interesting. Odd then that most of us, and especially the young, hip and trendy, seem to have become avid archivists without even realising it.

My archive, which I keep on the web, and in my computer, mobile phone and iPod, is neither particularly extensive nor interesting: several thousand digital photographs, play-lists of songs, endless dull policy reports, papers and presentations, some internet postings, Facebook friends and connections. Teenagers, however, are archiving their lives as they happen through blog entries and photos taken on camera phones, much of which they organise collaboratively, in semi-public, on the web. We have become a society of mass archiving.

Interesting stuff and worth reading in full.