365questions.org

The recent controversy about the clumsy speech of Benedict XVI has triggered this surprising question.

Would such a mistake have happened if the Pope were Web 2.0 compliant?

An intriguing Web 2.0 site such as eBible could have helped. Benedict could have posted his thoughts anonymously (using a username like Benedict06_Italy), interact with the community and refine his views. If the buzz had caught up, and with the help of few diggs, he might have come up with a whole dedicated Web 2.0 site of his own, with substantial advertisement revenues� But this 2.0 approach is maybe too protestant for the Pope.

He could also have tried to post on Islamic sites to get in touch with his fellow monotheist colleagues, but maybe that was really too Web 1.0.

Back to eBible, I thought the idea was quite interesting. Maybe because it seemed to have a nice flavour of the roots of the Internet at the time where scholars were pioneers, a community of wise men working together� But as I wanted to know who initiated the project, I could not find the usual “who are we” link, only the terms and conditions with an interesting chapter on fees: “You acknowledge that eBible.com reserves the right to charge for the eBible.com services and to change its fees from time to time at its discretion. If eBible.com terminates your membership because you have breached the Terms and Conditions, you shall not be entitled to the refund of any unused portion of subscription or online editions fees.”

What a disappointment. The Web 2.0 temple merchants are already here. The good news is that they are based in Nashville, so maybe they will make the Bible swing.

In the meantime, the Vatican servers seem to be overloaded lately as the site sometimes does not respond. I will ask about Vatican 2.0 when I can connect (though I may not be the first).

To that question I will probably get no answer. In this reference movie on religion, one character gives the trick: “when asked a question reply by another question” !

365questions got the message.

RD

This entry was posted on Monday, September 18th, 2006 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Unusual. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.