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Monday, May 2, 2005
Dis content 
| | Getting some nice responses to my closing keynote at Les Blogs, a week ago today. Rex: |
| | And so, I decided once again. I'm not in the content business. If I wanted to be in the content business, I would have chosen shipping or pallet-building or selling Rubbermaid products as my career. |
| | I will henceforth state that what we are doing is journalism, and that Corante is a (non-traditional) publishing company. Our blogs are really journals, published in a real-time, internet basis: but journals, nonetheless. In this view, blogging has lowered the cost of entry to publishing, allowing small fry startups like Corante to compete effectively for share-of-mind in the post-everything world of today. |
| | I'm getting tired of people insisting that blogs are one thing but definitely cannot be another. Sure, I know exactly what Searls is talking about: the type of blog written by individuals (like, for example, this one). But that doesn't mean that General Motors is abusing the blogosphere by producting Fastlane, which targets the consumer audience of automotive enthusiasts. |
| | I'll keep on saying it: Blogs are lightweight content-management systems, and as such, are applicable to any task the use of such a system accommodates. Consequently, we'll continue to see blogs branch out along several evolutionary paths. Some will be terrific, others will cause mass shrugging, and still others will be wretched. |
| | So, to clarify. When I say here that there are three different metaphors for blogging (as well as the Web), I'm saying it's already understood in terms of those metaphors. Literally. When I say in the next slide that blogging is about writing, I add that there's nothing wrong with the other metaphors. But I also say that blogging has "a stake in this game. A side in this war." |
| | Call blogging "content" all you like. Just don't expect content to have the same protections as speech and the (literal) press. |
| | To unpack the distinctions, look at what the FCC says about decency here, and what its former chairman says here — and then consider the likelihood that many "conservative" (love that irony) lawmakers want to extend the FCC's jurisdiction to the Net (that other den of "indecency"). Condider the likelihood that mainstream publishers will try to marginalize blogs as instruments of "content delivery" rather than "journalism," so blogs don't enjoy the full protection of shield laws. |
| | Truth is, we can't help conceiving blogs in terms of many different metaphors. But only one of those metaphors gives blogging the best possible protection against those who will, inevitably, seek to restrict speech. It's not "content." |
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