The archive and the processor: The internal logic of Web 2.0

In Web 2.0, there is a social dichotomy at work based upon and reflecting the underlying Von Neumann Architecture of computers. In the hegemonic Web 2.0 business model, users are encouraged to process digital ephemera by sharing content, making connections, ranking cultural artifacts, and producing digital content, a mode of computing I call ‘affective processing.’ The Web 2.0 business model imagines users to be a potential superprocessor. In contrast, the memory possibilities of computers are typically commanded by Web 2.0 site owners. They seek to surveil every user action, store the resulting data, protect that data via intellectual property, and mine it for profit. Users are less likely to wield control over these archives. These archives are comprised of the products of affective processing; they are archives of affect, sites of decontextualized data which can be rearranged by the site owners to construct knowledge about Web 2.0 users.