Missing the Forest for the Trees

This conversation, I believe, is talking a few levels above those it’s talking about. It’s not this complicated. This is an age of interactivity. Everything must allow for a staggering amount of user control. Computers come in different colors, telephones plan your schedule, palm pilots play your music and so forth. The critical part of all this is that none of these technologies give the user something, instead, the user gives them something. The user gives them style, schedules, music, and so forth. Traditional media is stuck in a rut that simply gives the user something; you broadcast the news. You give them a paper, they get to read it. All these new technologies, be they news blogs or news aggregators on your Treo stem from the user’s wish to control, filter and affect their news. Our society is now predicated on being the change, on having influence over every aspect of our lives. The media problem is a value problem, you still tell them what should be important while they want to be telling you; even if that participation is simply tokenism.

The question isn’t how do you adapt to these technologies, it’s how do you adapt to these users. They want a voice and, when they read a newspaper, they don’t get one. How do you change that?

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