It’s been quite some time I forgot a bit about Paul Graham, after having eagerly gone through a boatload of his essays when I first found out about him reading his excellent Ansi Common Lisp. Now, thanks to a newbie friend of mine, I got back to him again. And, on a great essay about Web 2.0, he drops this pearl:
“On the web, articles you have to pay for might as well not exist. Even if you were willing to pay to read them yourself, you can’t link to them. They’re not part of the conversation.”
Mind closely that last part: “you can’t link to them. They’re not part of the conversation.”
That pretty much sums it up. How long is the mainstream media going to keep this unidirectional approach to the web? You pay for it, you read it, and that’s that.
What’s the sollution? Bring down newspapers and put everyone to blogging? I don’t think so. Should they live unaltered side by side? Probably not. Should they meet in between? Perhaps.
There’s been some activity in that area, as with BlogBurst helping bloggers get published on big newspapers and magazines (or maybe helping those with great blogger freelancers) and with Press Releases having BackTracks.
It’s incredible how far-reaching these new social-web developments are getting.
