Swimming in New Waters

by Peter Saint-Andre

2004-12-14

Apropos of my recent complaint about begging bloggers, Doc further explores the intersection of blogs and money. Although I continue to doubt that micropayments will ever take off, I do think that we're learning to swim in the new waters engendered by the electronic tsunami. I don't know how money fits in, but Doc is probably close to the mark when he says that (some) folks will make money because of their blogging activities, not directly from their blogging activities (the blogosphere seems similar in this way to the open-source community). What we're witnessing is Schumpeter's creative destruction at work -- a phenomenon well captured by Doc's phrase "re-industrialization". New connections are being made and old ones are being torn asunder. What ultimately results from this process is anybody's guess, but I doubt that traditional publishers of books, newspapers, and magazines will be playing a dominant role in the noosphere of the future. The same probably goes for the record companies, radio networks, and television studios.

May you live in interesting times...


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