This post deserves far more consideration than I’m about to put into it… but what the heck, as will become clear that’s kinda the point :o)
Reading Hugh this morning quoting himself saying “The fact is, ad agencies hate blogs. They utterly despise them, even if they tell you otherwise. They hate them because if done well, they’re cheap and they’re easy” [note to self, quote oneself more :o] got me thinking about how I was explaining the impact of blogs a bit back in terms of Lawrence Lessig’s thoughts on the impact Eastman’s Kodak camera in 1888:
“We furnish any-body, man, woman or child, who has sufficient intelligence to point a box straight and press a button, with an instrument which altogether removes from the practice of photography the necessity for exceptional facilities or, in fact, any special knowledge of the art.”
OK, it’s far from new to talk about the mass amateurisation of publishing or, indeed, of nearly everything but I don’t think it hurts to revisit exactly what it is that makes weblogs special, once in a while, and for me the Kodak experience is the ideal metaphor.
What Kodak cameras didn’t do was get rid of professional photography… they probably caused a fairly significant decline in the employment of professionals but at the same time the explosion of interest in photography that arguably came from this innovation more than compensated.
But what it did do was empower millions to create a new genre that has shaped our perceptions, environment and culture as significantly, perhaps, as any technology.
And it’s this empowerment and darn-simple-ease-of-use which is what’s so scary for established systems and organisations. It’s scary for advertisers because it’s far from hard to do it well and right, it’s scary for rubbish publications because all of a sudden there are alternatives that don’t rely on a near monopoly of publication for success and it’s scary as hell for traditional power-communication structures because the avenues of mass communication (especially in the academic world) have been carefully guarded at the top (especially internally) and that’s about to change now we all have our own church door!
It’s also scary for the education technology providers because all of a sudden lil’ old me can whack together online learning environments without much trouble at all, because weblogs and weblog-esque CMSs (like Drupal) are starting to iron out the inefficiencies which they make their money from and because we’re building and developing what we want… rather than what you’ll give us.
>What Kodak cameras didn’t do was get rid of professional photography… …that arguably came from this innovation more than compensated.
Compensated Kodak? Hi James – I think you’ve raised some really interesting ideas here – me being elderly and all. I agree with you about the ability of the “lil’ ole you’s” of the world being able to take a technology and carve it into ways usable by the masses.
I used to make a living out of videoing events, including weddings – one of the reasons why I no longer do this is the local photographers used $1,000 cameras, and charged $1,300 + prints to cover a wedding. We used $15,000 – 20,000+ worth of hardware and couldn’t rustle more than say – $1,500 for an afternoon’s work. Sony was more than compensated by the fact that now everyone has a handicam, than our once-in-a-blue-moon purchase pattern.
In another role I used to buy advertising. One of the biggest problems I had (and this was just before blogging went mainstream – say 1999-2000) was that no print, radio, or tv supplier could guarantee me my target audience. It’d be worse today. I can completely understand why agencies hate blogs. The audience has vanished. We got bored and we’ve moved on. We talk to each other, and sometimes just to ourselves. A world of one – how postmodern is that?
The problem is for the likes of you and me is – although we’ve got the smarts to generate the engines and the content – we don’t necessarily have the constituency (well, maybe we can count on our mum reading our web site / blog, once). The other battle is, with an online world it’s a bit like preaching to the converted. If you aren’t somewhat literate, and have some sort of access, the digital divide takes care of you.
After Gutenburg came out with the printing press in europe there was an ‘internet-oidal’ explosion in the availability of print. What we’re experiencing (and participating in) – both in the growth of the internet and blogging – is a 21st century shadow of humanity’s desire to scratch a mark on a tree.
I recall reading somewhere, some time ago (not in a blog), that the real skill for romance in the 21st century is the same as in the Victorian times – an individual needed to be able to write letters, and be eloquent in text.
See you at blogtalk :)
Perhaps we’ve all been culturally compensated (while Sony & Kodak admittably have hardly suffered)
An interesting question is who, if anyone, is Kodak / Sony at this point.. Apple / MS? I don’t really think so…
Just keeping on scratching.. have some plans for scratching beyond the comfort zone (eh?) but will keep them under the hood for a bit…
[...] Adrian on the plane to Blogtalk – I argue that the most significant aspect of blogs is the kodakisation of publishing he says that it isn’t, it’s the fact that pretty much anyone can now have an [...]