Publishing made too easy?
To be honest, I created this blog partly because I am writing a book on making use of the Internet, and there I discuss the simple methods of publishing on the Web. Creating and starting a blog was surprisingly simple and fast, though with some some pitfalls—I have never liked the idea of having to check a checkbox, and captchas are particularly evil.
More or less, everyone who knows how to write, in the very technical sense of the words, as a matter of basic literacy, can have a blog.
However, the question arises whether publishing has been made too easy. When everyone can publish texts about everything, he will. It becomes more and more difficult to find anything interesting on the Web. Who would like to read everyone’s texts? Most people mostly have nothing to say that might be of interest to any wide audience, or they lack the basic skills of saying it.
Then again, I might be an elitist. Actually, I am. Most people can speak, and most people can learn to write, too. There is an ongoing change that is making written communication far more important than it used to be. Almost everyone sends text messages and E-mail, and blogs just add an interesting ingredient. The publication threshold is vanishing, and we will just need to develop better filters for what we even consider reading.
More or less, everyone who knows how to write, in the very technical sense of the words, as a matter of basic literacy, can have a blog.
However, the question arises whether publishing has been made too easy. When everyone can publish texts about everything, he will. It becomes more and more difficult to find anything interesting on the Web. Who would like to read everyone’s texts? Most people mostly have nothing to say that might be of interest to any wide audience, or they lack the basic skills of saying it.
Then again, I might be an elitist. Actually, I am. Most people can speak, and most people can learn to write, too. There is an ongoing change that is making written communication far more important than it used to be. Almost everyone sends text messages and E-mail, and blogs just add an interesting ingredient. The publication threshold is vanishing, and we will just need to develop better filters for what we even consider reading.
posted by Jukka K. Korpela | 3:07 AM
2 Comments:
Exactly. The more content there is, the better it is. The way we categorize, organize and rate all the released content is the main thing.
No support for elitism.
Creative open-minded thinking and
Systems Intelligence is the better future.
Finally easy publishing will get us there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_intelligence
It's not hard to single out the bad references...they are generally poorly written. There is a hidden fascism in the idea of a user maintained search engine. Here is my advice concerning the web. There is always a little bunk to sift through, whether you are wading through a swamp or reading anthropology. the web is what it is because it does what it does, that is why we are here. It allows anybody in the world to get information from anybody else, without ever having met, and without a man in a tal black hat dropping an apple on his head. That is the internet, and the internet is the new age's dearest child. Respect its power or get out of its way. BTW, Yuccablog, your help references rock. You are what the web is all about. Kudos.
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