The Cathedral and the Bazaar: My Version

For the first half of yesterday, I was in this private think-tank type meeting with big media types in NYC–people who’re heading big news organizations. It is a weird feeling: for one, you’re different by the sheer fact that you look different than all of them, plus you’re about half their age, in most cases. Secondly, however rational and normal you want to sound in these situations, you always end up sounding like the radical, simply because what’s coming out of your mouth is different.

In any case, the agenda was to discuss about the future of news and news consumption. Since the meeting was off the record, I will restrict from making any attributions here, but suffice to say that the fear inside the upper echelons is very real, and yet, they realize that for them, it is an opportunity to reinvent themselves. Whether they will be able to, and how, that’s the $100 billion question.

One thing which somehow everyone lamented yesterday: the end of serendipity, as choice in news sources and methods of consumption becomes an increasing reality. My reaction: what you people call serendipity, we call links. What you people call the homepage, we call Bloglines. What you call indepth-reporting, we call blogging a story to death. The difference is as deep as definitions. The difference is as deep as perception. The difference is the reality…

Comments have been disabled for this post