A few years ago, I was getting tired of answering the question "What's the internet?" This morning, I realized it's been a long time since I've had to answer that question. Chances are I will never answer it again. (No-one's likely to ask me what television is, either.)
Yet defining what the internet is today is more challenging a task than ever, because the internet has evolved rapidly, and continues to do so. A-list bloggers Doc Searl and Dave Weinberger provide some stimulating answers on their World of Ends site.
These days, I get asked "what's a blog?" (a question that feature-writers the world over are now feverishly answering).
Just as there was (and still is) a resistance to the growth and spread of the internet -- a resistance that includes many understandable concerns about privacy, the effects of pornography, protecting children, etc. -- now the anti-blogging argument is underway too. Mainstream journalists are voicing thier opposition to this all-too-easy and unregulated form of web publishing.
Writing on the BBC website last month, Bill Thompson insisted that blogging is not journalism. Dave Green, in last week's Guardian, didn't go so far, but nevertheless derided the activity as "a form of subjective sub-journalism, a stream of non-sequitur musings."
Such resistance is utlimately positive -- the brakes on the growth of new media. Let us look before we link.
Comments
0 comments