Blogging’s Past, Present and Future

Dan Farber of ZDnet gives an interesting overview of blogging’s past, present and future. Some highlights:

  • Dave Winer, who many consider the father of blogging, both technically and culturally, has been blogging for close to a decade.
  • “Every entity, from newspapers and political campaigns to corporate executives and PR pros, has adopted blogging as a communications medium, many from a defensive posture. So-called citizen journalists and notions of participatory journalism are reshaping, in fits and starts, how news is gathered and disseminated.”
  • “Over time, better filters and search mechanisms; measures of authority and trust; and natural selection will improve the noise to signal ratio, potentially for every individual’s preferences, and change perceptions about what constitutes mainstream media. ”

He also gives us a look at a book that will be coming out in early summer:”The Cult of the Amateur: how the democratization of the digital world is assaulting our economy, our culture, and our values.” It makes some controversial claims:

  • “…arguing that unfettered blogging and social media is a kind of curse on culture, threatening the quality of public discourse, stifling creativity and encouraging plagiarism and intellectual property theft.”
  • “He posits that citizen journalists don’t have the resources to provide reliable news, lacking the filters of traditional media, and that the hordes of amateur journalists often distort the news.”

You will certainly be hearing more about this book as the publication date approaches.

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