Seth Godin worries here about what the inflation of content means for its creators - in a world where people are happy to let a shuffle algorithm decide what they are going to read/listen/experience next.
Not a day passes by without us being reminded that new media - blogs, wikis, podcasting, etc. - have obliterated the information asymmetry that advertising and brands have traditionally exploited. We are told that the new blogosphere-enabled consumer is armed to the teeth with information and that in the new world, brands and its consumers are equal.
Do the controversies of the last year put an end to Wikipedia's rapid rise into prominence? Has the open source model of knowledge gathering and dissemniation been dealt a killer blow? Or is it just a passing storm and is Wikipedia going to emerge stronger?
Find out in this column, the second of a continuing series that focuses on the world of the future.
If you love the messiness that is the sprawl of information on the World Wide Web, then read "Everything Is Miscellaneous," by David Weinberger. If you hate that messiness, you should read the book, too. It'll teach you a few things.
You know, I wish I could remember where I first read about this, but what a cool idea. Totally changing the idea of what a library is and does. I love the idea of the library as an "idea store" too. Not a repository of information that is sometimes hard to navigate, but a place for you to get ideas.
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