Blogging: The next big thing
[My first post as a ZDNet blogger!]
Dan Farber has been writing about blogging and why blogging is important, and I totally agree with Dan, I think blogging is very important. But I hate using the word blogging because it means different things to different people.
I prefer to call blogging--online publishing. And it is online publishing using what I call media technologies; which I define as a technology/tool to publish content. Very simple, very broad.
It's not Web 2.0
The media technologies we have now, in this second phase of the internet, are two-way, they are asynchronous. We can easily publish each way--broadcast and receive.
This is not two-times the internet, this is more like the internet squared in terms of the powerful effect it is having, and will have on the world. It is not Web 2.0, let's put the 2 in the right place and on the right word. The internet is more than just the web.
In fact, these two-way media technologies that applications such as blogging represent, are the Next Big Thing. Yes, you read it right, this is the Next Big Thing.
Some of you are smirking, some of you are laughing, some of you have an uncomfortable feeling in your gut that I might be right about this.
All the characteristics of the Next Big Thing
Let me explain further. The usual characteristics of the Next Big Thing are that you don't see it at first. It comes out of left field, it is barely noticeable, and only a small number of people use it and evangelize it.
The Next Big Thing is born during a downturn, then it goes through the following stages: it is laughed at and derided by the majority; then it becomes grudgingly accepted; then it becomes blindingly obvious, that of course, it is the Next Big Thing.
Blogging (please don't get distracted by the content of blogs) is the most visible representative of these two-way media technologies that are going to disrupt nearly every industry we have, it is the Next Big Thing, imho. Please offer your laughter and derision--you are helping the process :-).