O'Reilly Network Weblogs: Political Patterns on the WWW

Published on The O'Reilly Network (http://www.oreillynet.com/)
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4338

Political Patterns on the WWW

by Tim O'Reilly
Jan. 30, 2004
URL: http://www.orgnet.com/divided.html

I've seen lots of "related books" tools based on Amazon, but this is the first time that I've seen anyone use it to draw some powerful conclusions. In this analysis, Valdis Krebs shows how the books people read reflects clusters of political preconception. There's a group of books read by the right, and a group read by the left, with surprisingly little crossover.

I'd talked about this phenomenon once before, after reading Cass Sunstein's Republic.Com, but it's amazing to see it demonstrated so clearly using Amazon's "related books" feature.

Interestingly enough, we're seeing this same behavior at our Digital Democracy Teach-In. Despite knowing that both Democrats and Republicans are using the new tools of digital democracy, it's tough to get them to come to the same event. Once you start out with one side, the other doesn't want any part of you. A sad commentary on our culture, since dialogue is a most important part of democracy.

Tim O'Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc., thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. In addition to Foo Camps ("Friends of O'Reilly" Camps, which gave rise to the "un-conference" movement), O'Reilly Media also hosts conferences on technology topics, including the Web 2.0 Summit, the Web 2.0 Expo, the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, the Gov 2.0 Summit, and the Gov 2.0 Expo. Tim's blog, the O'Reilly Radar, "watches the alpha geeks" to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. Tim's long-term vision for his company is to change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators. In addition to O'Reilly Media, Tim is a founder of Safari Books Online, a pioneering subscription service for accessing books online, and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, an early-stage venture firm.