Bloggers' revolution is largely overrated
By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)Updated: 2006-12-23 14:05
Now that Time magazine has named "You" its Person of the Year, those
addicted to the Internet have one more reason to tell their parents to beat it
and leave them alone with their "revolution."
You see, "you control the Information Age." It's "your world."
I really pity those who are computer illiterate but still want to exert some influence over their kids kids who spend days and nights at Internet cafes, subsisting on instant noodles and dozing off in makeshift beds provided by the proprietor. Even though they have the gaze of zombies, their parents and teachers are on the receiving end of a mass campaign that marks them irrelevant you might say a kinder and gentler version of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).
Don't get me wrong. I'm not denying the significance of Web 2.0 in particular or the Internet in general. There are many facets to the technology that are truly revolutionary. But the prediction that Web 2.0 will wipe out old media is overblown, and even sounds like the pomposity of the Red Guards.
Take YouTube for example. Much of the interesting stuff posted there is snippets from television shows, arguably part of the decaying old media. If you mention this content is copyrighted, you will be treated as if you are so old-fashioned you do not belong in this world. Revolutionaries do not need to worry about such trivialities as intellectual property rights, do they? IPR is for people with no imagination.
The technology essentially makes everyone a publisher, a broadcaster, a disseminator of news, views and entertainment. It will create new business models and reshape industries. But the old empires will simply crumble as the Red Guards said of the "capitalist roaders"? Give me a break!
In the US, the top 10 podcasts are all from media outlets like NPR and the New York Times. Why? Because they have been in the content business so long that they can consistently produce programmes of the highest quality.
Likewise, most of the decent blogs in this country are kept by professionals, especially those with experience in journalism. True, Wang Xiaofeng, cited by Time in its "You" cover story, cannot possibly publish his blogs in the magazine where he is a senior writer, but the quality of his writing is not something every blogger could attain just by getting a piece of online real estate and filling it with words.
To continue the metaphor, everyone can get a virtual plot, but very few have the expertise to grow something of value on it. If you cared to wade through the millions of non-celebrity blogs, you would find that most read like a high-school student's diary and would not get more than a few dozen hits.
Imagine a newspaper where newsprint, printing costs and delivery are all free and every contribution from every reader is printed. It would probably come to 50,000 pages a day. Do you think this tome would be more valuable than Time magazine or the New York Times? Not to me. I would rather pay for a thinner version written and edited with the ethics, style and experience of a pro.
Of course, when an editor comes into play, some raw gems may slip through. That is the price we pay for subjective selection, in the same way that people in a democracy have representation in government rather than participate in every decision. It also leaves room for people whose talent may not fit traditional mass media but could flourish on the Web with its free-moving communities.
In a revolution, millions act out of zealotry and do not ask for anything in return, while one person or small group reaps huge benefit from it, all in the name of serving the public. The same applies to Web 2.0. Some websites used to pay a paltry fee for professional writers, now Sina "invites" you to be a blogger, meaning you can contribute to their advertising revenue by doing pro bono work. That does not bode well for people who write for a living.
It could be fun to roll around in the carnival of this revolution for a while. But ultimately one cannot survive on the ego boost of a few million non-paying clicks. The line might blur, but there will still be professionals and amateurs. Wikipedia may work because it functions as a non-profit organization. But if the whole sector is like this, it will largely fail as a "massive social experiment" because it disregards the law of economics and creates much more unfairness in the name of egalitarianism.
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