JRobb makes the statement: "We are rapidly approaching the day when it will be possible for a person to publish a weblog from a PC, with rich audio and video, that is read/heard/seen by 1 m people and have it cost under $40 a year (all in costs including software, bandwidth, etc.). Now, that is a revolution." [JRobb's Radio Weblog]
I love JRobb's attitude and enthusiasm. But now he's ventured into 'our territory' - so I hope you don't mind the rant.
1. All self serving aside, it won't be called a weblog. Once media is disseminated into these tools, several other paradigm shifts and new 'features' will transform what we call weblogs today into something else. I won't deem to entitle these tools, except to say - they'll be A LOT more than just weblogs.
2. The main reason for my first statement is the reality of using and 'creating' with media. It's a whole new ballgame. Yes we'll still have discussions, comments, permalinks, web links and other 'blogosphere stuff' - but those constructs just don't work with media. Suffice is to say - this is where the innovation is gonna happen.
3. And what happens to communities - when they become media enriched? What happens when you can go out with a camcorder, shoot a rally, demonstartion, bake sale or after-school activity, come home and 'post it'? What happens if someone else was there, but posts something different - can we 'link' our footage tgether? Isn't all this closer to being a pirate TV station that a blogger? How do we encapsulate snippets of audio or video and 'permalink' them? How do we hypermedia link instead of hypertext link? How do we not simply embed media in our rants and raves, but truly create a distributed network of inter-locking news, entertainment, social, scientific and loving - media bits? How will our communities change then?
4. We need to go beyond the current scope and capabilities of today's blog tools. Putting it differently - it's text versus media. It always has been for me. Blogs are designed for writers to write (and perhaps attach an image or file - which can be media - yes.) But that's the epitomy of a hack. A kludge. A temporary fix. That's NOT how to create a media based communication, publishing medium. That's called patch quilting text based tools with media.
5. For this revoltuion to happen, we'll need a whole new generation of 'blog tools' - which not only integrate web services, communication and media jukeboxes - but also aggregate a lot more than just news channels and provide unprecedented levels of customization which is appropriate to who the user is.....(i.e. what's right for Grannie is wrong for her Grandchild or Daughter.) (Or what's right for a regular user, is unappropriate for beginners or advanced users.)
6. This all leads to what Don Norman calls 'human-centered' designs - and trust me - humans ain't gonna hack their HTML templates or script a media publishing sequence. As 'easy' as Radio is, we have to go A LOT further before these tools will be in the hands of many, who will become a Nation of One. As easy as LiveJournal (or it's off-shoot DeadJournal) is as easy as these new tools need to be.
6. Finally the price. Yes $40 a year is about for a blog tool. But that won't include bandwidth access, which BTW should be different for folks who care about publishing out to their old college roomates and family, versus the entire, whole world. Bandwidth costs money and video will never flow out over the 'free Internet'. This, in fact is one of the foundations of how tool smiths (like Userland and Broadband Mechnanics) will make our money - selling bandwidth, access and storage to end-users, in addition to offering to have them pay to turn off ads, or commissions obtained from selling digital download licenses.
So yes - I love your vision, it's just slightly askew. But I'm sure that, over time - you'll grok what I'm saying.
:-)
- Marc Canter - Sept. 5th, 2002
