mediajunk

Yup, that's my prediction (and this guy's, and this guy's and this guy's): the year ahead will see the web diary take centre stage in new media, moving from hobby to mainstream, just as the web itself in recent years.

(Aside: it fascinates me that a large percentage of bloggers are under the age of 18. For the youngest of these webkids, the internet has *always* been there, just like television has always been there ... uh, hasn't it?)

Blogs are also getting a lot more mention in old media, from discussions of the relationship between 'the blogosphere' and print journalism, to the thorny legal issues surrounding the publication of any document, no matter how 'personal' its opinions, in cyberspace.

Happy oh-three, junkies. Blog on.

Prettied-up extract from an email I just posted:

Blogging tools (like Movable Type and Blogger) are at the heart of the latest phase of the web's evolution. Like swiss army knives for webmasters, they not only build blog-style sites, but embellish them with quirky little features, some of which (like 'pinging' other sites to let them know you've just updated) work only because so many people are using the same software, and are part of the same communities.

Is the blog becoming the 'standardized interface' that Jakob Neilson has been moaning about for so long? Will blogs produce a shared set of interface conventions that will ultimately make the web more usable? We're certainly growing accustomed to the blog-style interface: newest entries on top; archives and 'my favourite sites' lists in the right or left margins; etc. Maybe the humble blog is the web's 'killer app' -- like the PC was for the home computing market (or like Netscape was for the internet)?