ObjectionsToSymmetry

ThoughtStorms Wiki

(From NewMediaIsSymmetricalConversation)

media will never be entirely symmetrical because

Surely, Most People Are Stupid

They can't contribute much of value compared to media professionals

And anyway,

even if they could, consumers still need professional editorial support to help guide consumers to the good stuff.

Er ... No. Not really.

The obvious best counter-examples are technical sites on the web. These are often created and maintained by techies to support a specialized area of interest - either to promote this area, or to gain respect within a community follow enthusiasts - and these sites are often preferred to those built by professional writers working for traditional journals, or even "official" information sites sponsored by corporates. (See also EditorializingIsParallelizable)

There might be several explanations for this phenomenon ...

geeks just wanna be journalists ... and have discovered their latent writing talent

geek content consumers are (unusually) willing to rough it, and live without the comforts of good writing, good editing, graphic design and marketing that normal media consumers expect

geeks are just earlier and faster adopters of InternetCulture where enthusiasts, experts, and self appointed community leaders, self organize themselves into a network of amateur content providers, reviewers, advisers, good links and general support.

The first of these explanations is kind of laughable, even to the most enthusiastic geek media enthusiast. (Although see ProgrammersAndWriters)

I think a lot of media pros are hoping the second is the true explanation.

But, naturally, I think the last is most likely. And that means that as soon as the other interest groups catch up (which they already are, and will continue to) whole swathes of the media will be out of business.

Except they won't, because, it seems DemandForInformationJustKeepsRising.

But even if the traditional media are not driven away by the P2P boom, the space is radically reconfigured.

If Enthusiastic Amateurs Generate All The Best Content. What's Left For The Professionals?

Opinion

General Interest

Content Too Boring To Inspire Fanatical Amateurs

Content Which Amateurs Can't Get Their Sticky Fingers On Because Lawyers Have Persuaded Governments That Intellectual Property Right Are Sacrosanct And To Be Upheld At Any Cost

1 : Your opinion is the one thing no one can emulate or start doing better than you. Opinionated writing is the web's killer app. It just keeps getting more popular.

2 : General Interest (as opposed to Content Too Boring To Inspire Fanatical Amateurs) is content which is so general that no one feels that there's much point in taking responsibility for it. No one thinks of writing it up, repackaging it or archiving it because it's somebody else's problem.

3 : Content Too Boring To Inspire Fanatical Amateurs? Don't even think about it! This is the stuff no one thinks of writing up, repackaging or archiving, because no one is interested.

4 : Content Which Amateurs Can't Get Their Sticky Fingers On Because Lawyers Have Persuaded Governments That Intellectual Property Right Are Sacrosanct And To Be Upheld At Any Cost

This is going to be the last refuge of traditional media giants. Remember this. The war is on. And it isn't really about Napster and those who redistribute content which is currently exists as someone's intellectual property. When I talk about P2P I'm really talking about an audience that generates valuable new content. But one problem is, that often they want to generate music by sampling

other people's tunes, tell stories about their favourite toys ( http://users.rcn.com/napier.interport/barbie/censored/),,)

write "Slash" fiction (about http://members.aol.com/mjr91/contents.html) about) TV characters, and generally create a living culture around

cultural icons (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/property/respect/antibarbie.html))