messages still scale up, individual voices and viewpoints do not. - Brian Kerr
The very thing that makes publishing your work online exciting and new is one of the biggest reasons it will remain the same old business.
Low barriers to entry mean that anyone can write anything and post it on the internet. The publishing industry faces "change or die!" Ideally, everyone would find their niche, the infinite area beneath the long tail of the curve would provide eternal customized delights to all thoughtful consumers of writing, music, and art. Unfortunately, that does require an ideal world, and we don't live in one.
This week, Technorati revealed that 70% of pings are from spammers. The barriers of entry are so low that releasing obviously fake, repetetive, and out of context marketing messages en masse is profitable. The barriers of entry are too low.
The low barriers to entry are no longer functioning best to let us discover new artists, public intellectuals, and writers that would have otherwise had no channel with which to reach us. We have already found them - they rose above the frothy anarchy of figuring-out-this-web-thing and called "follow us!" They are Markos, j-ko, Marcorxeny et cetera. We are more in inclined to swarm around them than spread out along the curve, no matter how many books Chris Anderson sells.
Furthermore, the sheer volume of the unwashed, wordpress-enabled masses, those enabled by the noble technodemocracy, do not serve to provide us a limitless menu from which to choose our source of daily inspiration. They serve to flood and clog every filter we have with the mundane bullshit of their everyday lives, et cetera. The ones that rise above the background noise are the early adopter, the well-connected, the corrupt, the funded, and the very rare true genius.
That's so old media.
The huge growth of unique content has made the background noise on the web all the greater. The vicious business of making your voice heard above the masses, making your creative mark on the world, is a lot more vicious when you have a million fucking times as many competitors. It's actually kind of a downer - "breathless futurism" is a guilty pleasure of mine, and this idea knocks my version of that down a peg. The clearest path up and out, as I see it, is for our filters, the aforementioned, flooded, clogged filters (googletechnoratiyoutubewhatever) to get a whole pile of a lot smarter - but even that won't stop our primal desire to crowd together at the same sites.
Author's note - I couldn't concentrate well enough to write this in the middle of the day after a cup of coffee, but somehow it rolled right off the tip of my brain at 1AM after a cup of soju. Lesson? Start drinking at work!
Jason Carlin commented, on December 5, 2007 at 6:23 a.m.:
It's signal vs. noise in a final showdown to the death! Choose you sides personal publishers, for you WILL be judged!
Rob commented, on December 5, 2007 at 6:23 a.m.:
I'm thinking of smaller circles. Sure, the quality material is being swamped out by the unwashed masses, but when did any kinds of masses ever seek out the quality content? The drastic change is that now these masses can communicate their averageness in new, exciting ways. There is a cult following for every inanity on the net, and although the average wordpress-empowered prophet doesn't reach out across the interweb, it's likely that he has his own group of faithful readers.
Collectively, these circles are noise, but separately they are stand-alone communication universes, with their own signals.
The method may be old media but the content certainly isn't. We're diversifying content (and I use the term "content" very loosely) on an unprecedented scale. I can be an expert on cosplay accessory creation or ibook case modding, which old media, understandably, never had a reasonable space for.
And the truth is we do have more quality signals than before, even if not as many as we originally thought we would. The very fact that I'm reading this blog (after checking out today's Momus and reading an ironically relevant discussion on MeFi) is a sign of that. Noise will always be around, but I'm personally of the opinion that this noise is different (in that it's textured) and not as pervasive as old media noise was.
the daniel commented, on December 5, 2007 at 6:23 a.m.:
these masses can communicate their averageness in new, exciting ways.
Kind of like how an agricultural manure spreader flings pig shit in new, exciting ways. :)
Seriously, though, point taken. There are more quality content streams than before - I'll give you that. I know I'm being a curmudgeon here, and my post is couched in negative language, but I don't deny the amazing information revolution that has happened and continues to happen - it's just that I think that noise is showing signs of gaining the upper hand over signal. I still stand by my statements that a) the masses expressing their averageness is outpacing our filters' capabilities to provide content targeted beyond a certain level of focus, and b) that we as humans naturally converge on fewer, larger sources rather than a million individualized streams.
S. commented, on December 5, 2007 at 6:23 a.m.:
I miss the days when one had to know how to code to be on the internet. I know, blasphemy.
I realize that "web 2.0", or whatever, is blisteringly exciting for people in the industry - as well as 12-year-old Kentuckians and Adrianne Curry - but the white noise is deafening and, frankly, frustrating.
The requirement that one know at least basic HTML was sort of built-in Darwinism, and it was nice. We are drowning in mediocrity now that every pre-adolescent, grandma, and sorority girl with access to an internet connection has the ability to reach millions.
(Although I have to admit, being able to upload from picasa to flickr and then from flickr to blogger - or skip flickr altogether! - is pretty fucking sweet. I'm also absolutely amazed and delighted by flickr and picasa's ability to resize and upload hundreds of photos at a time, in minutes. The other night I resized and uploaded over 1000 photos in one hour - a task that would have taken three months a few years ago.)
Taking time out at the tail-end of 1.0 and coming back after the dawning of 2.0, the difference was striking. It was like coming back after a few years to your quiet seaside community and finding Tokyo.
So yes, I miss the old days, even though the new days have their perks.
messages still scale up, individual voices and viewpoints do not. - Brian Kerr**The very thing that makes publishing your work ... (relevance: 90.9)
zO commented, on December 5, 2007 at 6:23 a.m.:
at last it is published - good work, agent D.
your efforts are noted and you are sure, yourself, to rise above the unwashed masses. i'll read this again after a second cup of coffee.