This just in!
What's that? An entry more than 24 hours before deadline?
Preposterous, they said.
And yet here we are.
So what interesting tidbit did I come across that called for an emergency blog update? Well, first go here:
http://www.cnn.com/exchange/ireports/topics/index.html.
Back? Good, because what you just saw was essentially CNN beginning its slow evolution toward becoming wikipedia.com. I'm sure there is some really good debate to be had from all this. Does this kind of thing have implications for the future of the journalism profession? When the barrier to journalism is metaphorically nonexistent, what is there to stop everyone from becoming a journalist? Is journalism destined to become a hobby? Where does this slippery slope lead?
I'd love to go into all those questions, but the fact is I watched the Daily Show last night and can no longer take the topic seriously. What I'm considering right now is, what are the implications of CNN.com hyping up its i-Report service by featuring the Daily Show story that makes fun of i-Reporting?
Sorry for posing more questions than answers - check out the
Daily Show clip (taken from YouTube) and all will be revealed.
"Was having one of those blah days, but then the stock shot up and now I'm worth $5.8 million more, so I guess today was good"
So the question of the day is: who's blogging?
I guess the easy answer is everybody. All you really need is an opinion and an internet connection; the threshold for entry is rock-bottom. Between Blogger, Xanga, LiveJournal and the myriad of other sites out there with the sole purpose of giving everybody a little webspace to write on, you can find hundreds of blogs out there now with topics ranging from current news to baby pandas (http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/). But generally, bloggers themselves haven't been particularly consequential beyond their blogs.
I found this link (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/biztech/09/18/exec.blogging.ap/index.html) and thought about the consequences of a CEO with a blog. On some level, it almost seems like a CEO
should be inaccessible. When you're talking about big players like Fortune 500s, CEOs are the tops in acapitalist society - how can they just up and start a blog for all to read, the same as anyone else? And imagine the nightmares the PR departments must have. They're entire job is to maintain the company's good image and control the information coming out of the company. What are they supposed to do when the boss decides he wants to share his thoughts on the industry with the world?
And this isn't the first time a famous person has kept a blog. Neil Gaiman, a widely read author, has kept a daily blog for years now. Posts range from random links he found to his personal life to previewing things that he's working on. A news site for videogames (1up.com) has a section of "developer blogs" where game developers keep running updates on whatever game they're currently working on. Blogging has taken on a PR aspect to it. Beyond pure opinion and reporting, people are using blogs to fully express every aspect of themselves.
But why?
The Internet, in this Web 2.0 period we're in, is all about individualism to me. It's not just e-mail and instant messenging anymore - every website worth its bandwidth in salt has a registration page now. Moreover, the among the fastest-growing trends are sites like Facebook and MySpace. The philosophy behind these sites is simple enough: allow users to create their own detailed profiles, and allow them to network with everyone else. The reaction has been huge. People want to project themselves onto the Internet, that much is clear.
Five years ago, a Fortune 500 CEO keeping a blog would have been unheard of - now, it's slowly picking up the pace. People are able to use blogs as a semi-personal, semi-professional space now. Web 2.0 has made the web a more personal place, and I think higher-profile individuals are beginning to understand the potential that blogging has on both a recreational and professional level.
