We are digital, Criminals
Posted on | June 23, 2009 | No Comments
We are Criminals.
As you read this post you are committing a grievous sin to some newspaper. Though the information it contains won’t ever be published. It would not have known the process to go through to earn the right to appear on paper. It remains as you see it, flickering at 75hz. The lone exception being when some laser printer springs to life as an office clerk deems It is worthy.
Information is no longer free it comes with a price, and that price is jobs. Industry does not need to evolve it needs to tax those that do. I am rotting your brain and letting the terrorists win all in one post. I am what is wrong with this country. This is all so new, so hard to deal with. I blog from my basement, yet I own the whole house.
This transition is hard. This is more than a transition, this is a revolution.
Printing Revolution: the democratization of literature left monks unemployed, left knowledge to the people. Literacy rates increased and the word spread. Stained glass continued to speak, but was no longer the sole source. Adoption was slow by today’s standards, you needed to learn to read. Town criers gave their notice as The news was now fit to print. You can’t read that paper, you’ll put a crier out of work.
Industrial revolution: Out with the old in with the new, travel became faster, news spread more rapidly, and family farms dwindled. Trades evaporated. Glassblowing, replaced by bottle machines. Quality replaced by quantity. Brands were born. The criers returned to the airwaves with larger town squares and bigger audiences. The printed news barks at the idea of being eliminated.
Media Revolution: Faster cars, and moving pictures. Brands got bigger and the world opens to trade. Newsprint culled back to smaller runs, no more evening editions, the talking pictures took on the task of educating the people at night. There are no radio dramas, but daytime stories. The pace has picked up. Revolutions are happening quicker, the news spreads quickly, and daily. The town criers are now local, national and dressed well. They empathically relate the world around them to a tribe of enthralled people.
Welcome to the Digital Revolution.
There are no borders here, and we are all the criers. Newspapers decry the blogger in the basement, yet fail to realize they have never been delivered to that house. The Radio looses its luster when homogenized, and looses its audience when computers pick the play list. Personalities are shuffled off the air. TV grasps at straws as they fail to accept their declining role. Reality TV, the last gasp of air as the people yearn for stories, and the networks for ratings.
Podcasts give the personalities who never got the chance to make it to air a voice. They spread the news to their own tribe of people. Video gives life to stories that could never have been told beyond the walled frequency. We are picking up steam, this revolution is harder as the time table is condensed.
Companies that fail to evolve blame the new media on their struggles, and leave a workforce, unemployed and angered. They blame these fancy thinking boxes. They blame the kids, with their blogs and their rock music. They are right, moving forward does cause problems, it is up to this generation to find places in the new regime for the people it displaces. This is our problem, together.
We are not criminals but a crime has been committed. There is no alibi, no excuse. You are not exempt. If people are willing to change then others must be willing to teach. This is where we are.
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