keep on blogging in the new year
As you may have noticed...I slipped off the face of blogging for a good bit. This wasn't deliberate, it just happened.
Frankly, having been going at blogging in one way or another since the fall of 2003 and never having made a dime at it, I felt at liberty, if not the need, to let this mode of writing go for a moment while I sorted out other, more remunerative (and essential), components of my making a living in this world. (I am a small businessperson.)
I do think, whatever my participation, that blogging and bloggers are essential components of the 2008 landscape and forwards...and our voices will be of increasing importance as the new year emerges. The world is hungry for change and the status quo media is simply unable to keep pace with the scale and scope of the change needed. Online writing, whether it be in the form of a local blog, a community blog-site on national politics or a website that addresses international issues and cross-border communication is more relevant than ever.
As a veteran of the anti-Apartheid movement of the 1980's I can only imagine what we might have done if we had been able to communicate with each other online routinely with blogs and other such web innovations (Facebook, Google Groups, etc.)
As it stands, I think we've only begun to scratch the surface of the potential of bottom-up, small-d democratic communication online.
I am a habitue of one of the Berkeley/Oakland cafes that gives the East Bay its reputation as one of the ongoing nodes of political/cultural discussion and fervor here in the U.S. For me, it's always interesting to see how ideas move, separately, through the two environments.
Offline, at a cafe, it is easier to talk about ideas and to engage in free-flowing back and forth and questions about ideas in depth. It's easier to debate and to engage. Online, it is easier to stay abreast of the absolute latest news and to suss out the emerging conventional wisdom about a given topic...as well as track down the most-trusted sources with reliable fact-checking and in depth analysis through hyper-links.
I do not think that blogging is going away. Instead, I think that online writing and communication is slowly replacing traditional print and electronic media as the vehicle for how newshounds and political savvy readers keep up with the latest news and discussions.
Is there a business model for this kind of discussion and information sharing to generate small revenue streams for its best practictioners? I don't know. It seems to me to hinge on whether and how micro-transactions are implemented on the web and whether the online environment will retain the ability to have the equivalent of "small press" or "indie" enterprise or whether conglomeration and large corporations will eat up the smaller fish. Blogging must be, as I've stated before, sustainable and independent...or it will not flourish.
In blogging and politics, much is up in the air.
Truth be told, however, much of what the first half of the global 21st Century will look like is about to be shaped in the national outcomes of the domestic elections in the United States in 2008. Blogs will play their role in that outcome.
This election season, however, is only the beginning of a much needed sea change in how we conduct our affairs of state and our run our economy. All of us will have our part to play in this changing environment.
Bloggers too. That's you and me.
Cheers, and Happy Holidays
k/o
Frankly, having been going at blogging in one way or another since the fall of 2003 and never having made a dime at it, I felt at liberty, if not the need, to let this mode of writing go for a moment while I sorted out other, more remunerative (and essential), components of my making a living in this world. (I am a small businessperson.)
I do think, whatever my participation, that blogging and bloggers are essential components of the 2008 landscape and forwards...and our voices will be of increasing importance as the new year emerges. The world is hungry for change and the status quo media is simply unable to keep pace with the scale and scope of the change needed. Online writing, whether it be in the form of a local blog, a community blog-site on national politics or a website that addresses international issues and cross-border communication is more relevant than ever.
As a veteran of the anti-Apartheid movement of the 1980's I can only imagine what we might have done if we had been able to communicate with each other online routinely with blogs and other such web innovations (Facebook, Google Groups, etc.)
As it stands, I think we've only begun to scratch the surface of the potential of bottom-up, small-d democratic communication online.
I am a habitue of one of the Berkeley/Oakland cafes that gives the East Bay its reputation as one of the ongoing nodes of political/cultural discussion and fervor here in the U.S. For me, it's always interesting to see how ideas move, separately, through the two environments.
Offline, at a cafe, it is easier to talk about ideas and to engage in free-flowing back and forth and questions about ideas in depth. It's easier to debate and to engage. Online, it is easier to stay abreast of the absolute latest news and to suss out the emerging conventional wisdom about a given topic...as well as track down the most-trusted sources with reliable fact-checking and in depth analysis through hyper-links.
I do not think that blogging is going away. Instead, I think that online writing and communication is slowly replacing traditional print and electronic media as the vehicle for how newshounds and political savvy readers keep up with the latest news and discussions.
Is there a business model for this kind of discussion and information sharing to generate small revenue streams for its best practictioners? I don't know. It seems to me to hinge on whether and how micro-transactions are implemented on the web and whether the online environment will retain the ability to have the equivalent of "small press" or "indie" enterprise or whether conglomeration and large corporations will eat up the smaller fish. Blogging must be, as I've stated before, sustainable and independent...or it will not flourish.
In blogging and politics, much is up in the air.
Truth be told, however, much of what the first half of the global 21st Century will look like is about to be shaped in the national outcomes of the domestic elections in the United States in 2008. Blogs will play their role in that outcome.
This election season, however, is only the beginning of a much needed sea change in how we conduct our affairs of state and our run our economy. All of us will have our part to play in this changing environment.
Bloggers too. That's you and me.
Cheers, and Happy Holidays
k/o
Comments
You seem to appreciate more than most the changes that are occurring in how our world functions through the rise of new communication techniques. These new communication techniques are now possible through the internet which allows both economical and wide reaching messages to be sent.
In the past, most people seemed to function in our world with choices limited to those made available through the economic market. Very few people could effect the themes that were used to portray the perceived reality that overshadowed and sanctioned the economic world. That reality function was in the past reserved for chieftains.
Now individuals can put forth ideas that can be received by an audience that in the past required millions of dollars to reach, and effectively alter the themes used to evaluate our economic world. It is those values which then enable an appropriate economic world to function.
This upcoming election will be a major test of the power to use the internet messaging system to alter the perceived themes that we use to judge our economic world.
First Howard Dean and then the last election cycle gave us a taste of this power that individuals can grasp.
This election cycle will be much more powerful in its effect. One likely consequence is that the people moving into office through the power of the internet messaging will probably need to continue to use that new messaging system to continue to effectively exercise the power of their newly acquired offices.
I would like to be able to see your insights in the future, and after this election cycle is past. There will be structural changes in how we communicate and challenge core beliefs, which I think you you will pick up quicker than most.
Everyone knows about the great skewing of our economy in favor of the very wealthy, but it appears that internet based messaging may be giving us what amounts to new priests and temples, which will then be used to alter our community perception of what is right and wrong at the economic level where these merchants and consumers have historically operated.