I was reading some random posts at David Weinberger's blog that he posted a few days ago while summing up the BlogTalk Conference.
A couple that caught my eye were by blogger and information technology pundit, Dan Gillmor (I recommend his Open Spectrum-esque article).
Mr. Weinberger states:
H says he's tired of the debate about whether blogs are journalism. It's endless and pointless. Some are and some aren't. They are their own form and they complement real-world journalism. As Doc Searls says, everyone now is a "stringer," i.e., a freelancer who occasionally feeds stories to newspapers and magazines.If you any of you are in contact with The Register's Andrew Orlowski, send him that quote por favor. Continuing:
What about trust? Falsehoods travel faster than truths, Dan says. But, as Ken Layne said (Dan says), "We can fact-check your ass."Very true, though some people still refuse to do their homework or even bother to use Google (what is so hard or evil about finding resources to defend assertions, maybe getting a liberal arts degree isn't such a waste, intimidated by research mayhaps?).
Mr. Weinberger also summed up several points expressed by klogger Phil Wolff:
1. "Blogs will merge with other media." It's already happening. Blogs and wikis and who knows what.Many of the news and commentary sites I visit are either developing or have deployed a collaborative blog for their columnists to post on. I'd have to agree with Mr. Wolff's analysis and think this will become the rule rather than the exception (though, I doubt you'll see blog.cnn.com anytime soon).
2. "We'll have bloggers that aren't people." He points to Tivo's recording history: a reverse chronological log of the system's activities. He expects more apps to do this, including factory lathes and cars.That is an interesting prediction, however do not fear, something similar is here! News aggregators are similar to that idea (in that they are automated and in reverse chronological order), news.google.com already exist. Another one that I was first introduced to several months ago was the Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator.
In fact, Photoshop has that built into the "History menu." Sure Adobe doesn't include an RSS feed with it, but it does keep track of each widget/tool/item you use - Journaling File Systems (JFS) also do that. I can see how that could be beneficial in cars as well.
3. "We'll start blogging things that aren't bloggable today." Blogging tools will offer "pools of richer expression," new community services, etc.Hehe, I sure hope that this isn't the end of tools and utilities. I really enjoy Trackback and consider it nearly as important as RSS, I'd like to see more features like that (to get an idea of what the "future" holds, visit the forums at MovableType, Cafelog, Pivot, Nucleus, etc., that is where some of the new bleeding-edge hacks are discussed).
He also predicts there will be a backlash against blogs once it goes mainstream.This is a perfect spot to refer to Dr. Jenkins' post regarding media outlets and plagiarism. I wouldn't doubt seeing the various writers guilds and unions complaining, their jobs are on the line (some will completely miss the fact that they can start a blog or ask their employer to start a collaborative one).
I broke my Magic 8 ball a few weeks back, but I do believe these two gentlemen have some great insights on where things will go. Does the outlook look good? What do your sources say? Are you going to tell me now? [/magic8ball]
Posted by Tim at May 27, 2003 02:47 AM | TrackBack