Media Explosion
Wow, I have been pretty lax in posting and I apologize for that. Things have been super hectic lately because of my move to Chicago (and because I haven't had internet at home for the past week). In fact, today marks the end of my first week in Chicagoland. Why did I move to Chicago you ask. I just started a new job this week. I am now in Business Development with FeedBurner and I couldn't be more excited! You can keep up with our announcements by subscribing to the company blog. Things are going great and I believe FeedBurner has an incredible future ahead of it (although I may be a bit biased)!
One of the reasons I love my job is that I get to reach out and talk to the blogging and podcasting community on a daily basis. In my first week alone I have spoken with a number of newbie podcasters (plug! check out my podcast) about how to get their feeds set up and distributed to services like iTunes. So many people are getting their voices out today with the help of technology and I think that is an amazing thing. What will be even more amazing will be the growth of blogging and podcasting as the developing world starts to receive more technology like the OLPC $100 laptop.
Imagine a future where you can view someone's daily life in Vietnam or Egypt through a blog, podcast or flickr stream. We will be able to develop a better sense of other cultures and how they perceive things. This will hopefully give people more perspective on the world and the human condition. However, with this explosion of media comes a large responsibility. We need to develop better filters.
When I was in Cairo a couple of years ago my professor asked me to pick up a newspaper and give a read. In doing so I could instantly see the slant that the paper had. The same topic would have been covered much differently in a paper back in the US. I already knew that the news had biases built in (after all, we are only human) but I had never seen it as clearly as I had that day in Cairo. Now, with so many media sources out there, we will have to become better at filtering through them and taking biases into account. I believe we will get better at this as time goes on. I also believe that the larger publishing institutions, like the New York Times, will act as a guide to the average media consumer helping them through the maze of blogs and podcasts out there.
It will be interesting to see what the future of media holds and how it will affect society. Blogging and podcasting are here and are not going anywhere soon so the time to start developing more aware media consumers is now.
One of the reasons I love my job is that I get to reach out and talk to the blogging and podcasting community on a daily basis. In my first week alone I have spoken with a number of newbie podcasters (plug! check out my podcast) about how to get their feeds set up and distributed to services like iTunes. So many people are getting their voices out today with the help of technology and I think that is an amazing thing. What will be even more amazing will be the growth of blogging and podcasting as the developing world starts to receive more technology like the OLPC $100 laptop.
Imagine a future where you can view someone's daily life in Vietnam or Egypt through a blog, podcast or flickr stream. We will be able to develop a better sense of other cultures and how they perceive things. This will hopefully give people more perspective on the world and the human condition. However, with this explosion of media comes a large responsibility. We need to develop better filters.
When I was in Cairo a couple of years ago my professor asked me to pick up a newspaper and give a read. In doing so I could instantly see the slant that the paper had. The same topic would have been covered much differently in a paper back in the US. I already knew that the news had biases built in (after all, we are only human) but I had never seen it as clearly as I had that day in Cairo. Now, with so many media sources out there, we will have to become better at filtering through them and taking biases into account. I believe we will get better at this as time goes on. I also believe that the larger publishing institutions, like the New York Times, will act as a guide to the average media consumer helping them through the maze of blogs and podcasts out there.
It will be interesting to see what the future of media holds and how it will affect society. Blogging and podcasting are here and are not going anywhere soon so the time to start developing more aware media consumers is now.
posted by Eric at
5:32 PM
2 Comments:
I am lazy and don't read so I just typed in whatever your Website told me. . . and now I have a feed of my blog. Neat! I went back and read things (since I'm just a dumb marketing guy) and I guess you set up a way for people to subscribe to my blog, but I'm still not completely understanding the value. I guess this means I can track people subscribing -- but is there any value to the people who subscribe through my FeedBurner feed? Humm.
By
Anonymous, at 4:44 PM
Mark, I just sent an e-mail your way with some answers to your question.
By
Eric, at 2:09 PM
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