Are you cultured? Reflections of culture on technological usage.

When we talk about culture, we may mean two different things. One, culture as a set of behaviors unique to a particular group of people. We may say Chinese like red colors and are family oriented. Two, culture as in mannerism and pleasantness in face to face meeting. I think that the second type of culture is more relevant to technological usage.

The Internet is now driving a lot of changes in our society. But what driving Internet usage is the culture (the second type). In China's Internet space, we saw a lot of trojans planting, hacking, and government censorship. Chinese Internet groups did not appear to be working well together. More often, they were trying to defeat their competitors using all means possible. Companies also do not readily open their web portal, e.g. forums, to all visiting users. It was common to install a layer of protection such as invitation code for new visitors.

In the US's space, it appears to be more open. And relationship between sites are friendlier, at least, they do not compete beyond developing better products. Site masters appear to be working together well, including developers and their users. These was what I have seen in the World of Warcraft Modding communities.

Perhaps the short 30 years of Chinese's encounters with free market economy caught its culture off-guard. They were not ready for full fledge open collaborations. Nonetheless, following our definitions, we may say then that the US community is more cultured than the Chinese. And that despite having the same technology, Chinese culture requires changes to optimise its use. Moreover, Internet is merely an enabler. What makes people effective is communication.

I am more than convince with Web 2.0 driving the forefront of social development, the future of successful societies lie in development of their culture.