Andrew Keen is an author, Internet developer and current TechCrunch host. He created audiocafe.com when the Internet was still developing. On TechCrunch, he interviews individuals regarding “technology, media, and policy” on his series KeenOn.

I watched his interview with Carmine Gallo, an author and communications specialist. Gallo was featured on KeenOn to share his own book, The Power of foursquare. If you aren’t familiar, foursquare is a location service developed for mobile devices. Gallo has written about how foursquare has allowed small business to compete with big businesses when it comes to marketing. He focuses on the businesses rather than individuals who check in everywhere. In my opinion, I think checking into all the places you go is allowing too much personal information being put out to the world.

Keen seems to think that people are getting so engrossed in their lives by blogging about their day and maybe even checking in. He did not mention foursquare in his book, The Cult of the Amateur, probably because it was published in 2007 and foursquare was being founded that same year.

The most interesting thing Keen wrote was “rather than using [the internet] to seek news, information, or culture, we use it to actually BE the news, the information, the culture.” That led me to think about what the Internet was probably made for when it initially was created.

There is a disconnection from when the Internet began to where it is now. Keen reveals that the primary goal was to have people all around the world networked and always connected. He wanted to have it so that people could listen to tasteful music wherever they were. Today’s Internet is a community of people competing for attention by means of putting out superficial crap that doesn’t add anything to institutional culture.

This seems to disgust him because he keeps mentioning that people don’t care about what’s going on in the world. I wonder if the Internet is really making people misinformed and ignorant? I have a hard time accepting that people out there really think Wikipedia is a credible source and that everything on the Internet is true. If you Google “God,” you’re going to find a lot of things negative and just as many things positive. Would you take it for face value or at least look at both sides then make up your own mind?

Overall, I understand his argument that the Internet is flooded by empty content that doesn’t have any use other than for entertainment or expression. I just think an open mind has to be kept when criticizing all the stuff that’s on the Internet. That’s why we get an education, right? Not everything out there is going to lead our culture to a dead place.