On Thursday, I was interviewed by a local writer for a story about Albuquerque bloggers to appear in the November issue of Albuquerque Magazine. Although I don't think my blog is interesting enough to warrant an interview on based its content, I live in Albuquerque, and sometimes I post Albuquerque related stuff, so I guess it made sense.
During the interview, Kelly asked me many of the questions you might expect in an interview about blogging. I'd like to expand on some of things we discussed. The blog-o-sphere seems an appropriate place. Perhaps the most appropriate place.
Why do we read blogs? Why do we write them? Why are they important? What's their future?
Aside from the obvious -- a diary, a soapbox, solidifying an online brand, or simply posting photos so your friends can see places where you've been -- there's other things at play with this weblogging deal...
Orson Scott Card might be most well known for a story that has two children posting their public policy opinions on "the nets". Behind a set of anonymous personas, these children and their rhetoric change history. This sub story of two siblings left home while their brother destroys the enemy and claims victory for Earth may not be the part of Ender's Game that most people remember or are especially fond of, but I see it as the most important idea in all of the Ender books. I haven't read the book for going on eight years now, but I seem to remember getting the following message, after reading it:
When mechanisms exist that enable much of humanity to freely publish their thoughts and inventions, while easily accessing the published works of others, individuals, not organizations will cause the events that shape our world. The more widespread these publishing mechanisms become, the more the demographics of those who alter our society will bend to become strange and unpredictable and the more those with the best authentic talent will come to the forefront.
This could be my philosophy warping Card's intentions, but it's a cool idea don't you think? Maybe not. What do you think of meritocracy? Are today's blogs having such an effect on the world? I think that they or their successors have the potential. We'll see what happens.
For the record, the stuff I'm talking about in this post isn't a reflection of what my blog is, has done, can, or will do. I don't think my blog will be informing, entertaining, or swaying the opinions of large swaths of human population anytime soon.
There are, however, many blogs out there today that are doing exactly what I'm talking about and truly supplanting traditional media. There's a good reason for this; They're better than the traditional media. They're breaking important stories first, providing more intelligent analysis, and offering a web of intelligent discussion to boot. There's no way that the Ron Burgundy's of the world and the wankers that feed him their lines on the 6:00 news can ever be as nimble as the web and a nation of inter-connected individuals.
It seems to me that:
A real person, even one masked behind an anonymous persona, speaks with a voice that is magnitudes more human, authentic, and compelling than the sterile and passionless organs of today's corporations, media, governments, and institutions.
For example, when I want to know about the SCO lawsuits, I don't go to sco.com. Instead, I read http://www.groklaw.net/, because a real human who I can identify with writes it, and a real discussion with real humans takes place in response to it. The websites and press releases from SCO, IBM, or Novell are not compelling. They're not made by people you can relate to. They're unoffensive (and uninsightful) gray poop that's spit out of a machine after it's filtered through a building full of lawyers. Yeech. Who's interested in that crap? I'll take real stuff from real people. Thanks.
Another example came to me this morning as I happened upon the homepage of The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (communist North Korea). The site is hilarious. If freedom of speech was possible and computers were available to the general population of the DPRK, I'd wager you would get a much different and vastly more authentic picture of what goes on in North Korea. I admit, it's an extreme example, but doesn't it make my point? Do you see how, for example, a poor but articulate and inspired blogging math teacher from the DPRK could gather a greater audience without coercion than their "leader" can generate with all of the state's army?
On a lighter note, the obviously fake but brilliantly constructed weblog of Kim Jong Il (the illmatic) is much more fun that the DPRK's homepage. In it, the reader delights in instant message conversations between Kim Jong Il, Saddam, and George W. Bush.
If you remember the 95 theses of the cluetrain manifesto, you might notice a few that fit well into this discussion. Actually, all of them fit somehow. Perhaps I should just shut up and have you read it?
One final musing:
In New York on the morning of September 11th, 2001, I was in South Korea where it was already into the evening. I had just gotten back to the hotel from a hard day's work. The news hadn't happened yet. I didn't turn on the TV. Instead, I booted my laptop, hooked into the hotel's high-speed Internet jack and, as I frequently do, checked the news on slashdot.org. There, on a weblog about geek stuff, I found out that we had been attacked, right as it happened. After a good hour of reading, I turned on CNN, but continued to read. Slashdot and the stuff it linked to didn't totally replace what I was seeing on CNN, but it was in many ways more balanced, personal, and informative. I believe the experience was an early and very clear glimpse into the future.
I'll be back after I take some pictures of my new desk.
