This just in from our correspondent on the ground in remote Manacapuru, Brazil... 

A rabid band of tambourine-toting Hare Krishnas has stormed and overtaken a small Xingu Indian village deep in the Amazon rainforest. Preliminary accounts are that hostages have been taken. However, the Krishnas' demands have yet to be communicated.

No. Actually, "'Cult' Invades Amazon" is about a book. The much talked about "The Cult of the Amateur" goes on sale today and is now available on Amazon.

Here's the deal: If you’re a serious business person and want to read the tea leaves as to what the Internet is doing to our culture and subsequently your livelihood... BUY "CULT" TODAY!

ABOUT

In his new book, "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture," Silicon Valley insider Andrew Keen argues that Web 2.0 threatens our culture’s moral and aesthetic standards. Turns out this deluge of free, user-generated content is threatening the very viability of our cultural institutions. It's as simple as this: Awash now in opinion posing as fact, we, as a society, are quickly losing the ability to discern what's valuable; AND THAT... has the potential to disrupt everything you hold dear.

"Cult" paints a grim picture:

Our newspapers, magazines, music and movies are all being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is in free fall, being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craig’s list; television networks are under attack from free, user-generated programming on YouTube; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry. Worse, our “cut-and-paste” online culture threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, robbing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, editors, and producers of the fruits of their creative labors.

Yikes! Add it all up and the populace movement that is Web 2.0 is rapidly eroding the very under-girding of our democracy.

NOTE TO THE CULTISTS

To all the zealots who have bought into the Web 2.0 Movement hook, line and sinker... I am going to ask that you at least for the moment stifle your intellectual prejudice. 

If you're one of the many vocal Web 2.0 cultists who, true to stereotype, groused incessantly about this book before it was even released... here's your chance to actually show some intellectual integrity and consider an opposing viewpoint.

For the record, I totally understand and empathize with those that approach the topic with bias. Personally, I was first similarly inclined to dismiss Weinberger's new book "Everything is Miscellaneous." But in the spirit of intellectual integrity, I forced myself to read it and did so with pencil in hand. Where it took me a few hours to read Keens book... I worked on "Miscellaneous" for three days. And my conclusion? Although I am diametrically opposed to Weinberger's wild theories, like Keen's "Cult," I recommend it highly. Open your mind and consider the BIG picture.

CONCLUSION

 "Cult of the Amateur" is a must read. It's important. It's something that should be discussed broadly ASAP.