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March 18, 2004
Superbloggers and the Future of Big Media
Rob Enderie has an interesting article on Superbloggers and the Future of Big Media. The article essentially predicts the end of the news media as we know it and says that "firms got so involved in thinking about other things, like cutting costs, that they lost track of their customers while the bloggers moved in...to fill the gap." Enderie continues:
Where the bloggers shouldn't be able to compete is on "perspective" and experienced talent. Perspective, or what the news means to me, is the sustainable advantage. But to provide it, you need to know your customers very well; you need to move very quickly to respond to threats and change. And to do that, responsibility needs to be distributed out to the people who are closest to the customer. In a way, building a blend of what the blogger is and what the news services are would turn out a kind of superblogger. But to get this perspective, the news agencies will have to bring in some fresh talent and allow that talent to create a more flexible, responsive organization. They'll need to blend the old with the new, and they'll need to think through the use of the massive technology and information they have at their disposal and find better, faster ways to apply that technology so that valuable perspectives can be created and communicated.From Technology News: Viewpoint: Superbloggers and the Future of Big Media
Referenced Thu Mar 18 2004 20:08:21 GMT-0700
I don't agree entirely . Its true that many bloggers are just guys commenting on the news with little or no experience, but many of the blogs I read (admittedly mostly technical) are written by the very guys making it happen. Can anyone question the perspective of Dave Winer, Doc Searls, or Robert Scoble? They bring incredible perspective to their writing. My own blog is written by someone who's been a CTO and CIO. My perspective is just that, my perspective. But would any single reporter's perspective be better? I don't think that's a given.
Even more to the point, the nature of news has gone completely away from perspective in the last 25 years. Do you get perspective from CNN or ABC? Not really. In fact, in an effort to be "gritty" and fill air-time, they provide more and more news in the raw. There's no perspective in that and any blogger can do the same.
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Why's Interior Offline?
Dave Fletcher in Judicial System Strikes Again: BLM Shut Down makes an interesting point:
The BLM has vanished from cyberspace. It seems ridiculous, but court orders have shut down not only the BLM Internet presence, but the entire Department of the Interior. Although the sites were also shut down for several months in 2001, this latest action by Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington has huge ramifications, particularly in a state like Utah where the majority of the land is owned by BLM. This is like saying we're going to shut down all government facilities around the country because one of them has been shown to have inadequate physical security. There should be a public outcry.From David Fletcher's Government and Technology Weblog
Referenced Thu Mar 18 2004 19:39:24 GMT-0700
There seem to be a few issues:
- A security weakness in a network has the potential to make unrelated sites vulnerable.
- Also, its not clear that Interior has done all they can to fix the problem.
The trial stems from a suit over Interior mismanagement (says the court) of a trust maintained by Interior that contains royalties to be paid to Indian tribes. I'm sure that I don't know the entire story. I'd love to understand why Interior thinks they can't move faster. Is it simply intransigence, a disagreement with the courts over what needs to be done, or what? Wired, in a recent story on the case said:
[U.S. District Judge Royce] Lamberth said the move was necessary because the department refuses to work with Special Master Alan Balaran to fix holes in the computer security, which has been widely criticized in government reviews as being deficient. The department has accused Balaran of being biased. Lamberth denied the department's request to remove him from the case.From Wired News: Interior Department Goes Offline
Referenced Thu Mar 18 2004 19:47:15 GMT-0700
A special master is a technical (in the broad sense) expert employed by the courts to gather facts and recommend action. In 1998, Larry Lessig was appointed and then not appointed as a special master in the Microsoft anti-trust trial. All this still doesn't say what Balaran wants Interior to do that they find so onerous.