We Were Talking About Why

Posted on January 24, 2008
Filed Under What's New |

Vern Lun of TheGoodBlogs and I occasionally exchange views on the long tail and our frustration with not figuring out where the really useful bits of Web 2.0 lie. Vern’s project is fabulous - he’s promoted blog posts more than 110 million times in a little over a year but like me feels some days he’s not meeting the real challenge, nor identifying it properly. Read Vern musing here.

That frustration led to us talking about Second Life and whether that is the environment for real change but even that term real change is loaded. I mean change that matters to us but also fulfils our creative and ego needs. Vern recommends this post as an orientation on the issue. Here is my take having read MyNameIsKate.

A lot of us are serial new media adopters. I think I did friendster, though I’m not sure now. I have a Ryze profile, have used friendsreunited, am on facebook, of course, Xing and LinkedIn and my Second life presence is increasing.

With each of these social network applications what I’m saying is the world ain’t right. There is something in the way I networked in the phsyical face-to-face world that didn’t workfor me. There’s something in the way newspapers operate that didn’t allow me to blossom as a writer. There’s something about television production that stopped me getting on.

I keep making the trek to another way of doing things in the hope that this time some of these wrongs come right. I meet the people whose values I share, those people are true influencers, and life gets easier.

Just on that last point who in the freelance sector, journalist or entrepreneur, is sleeping well at night. When we’re not working on assignments we’re worrying where the next assignment is coming from. And in addition the freelance role is so widely accepted now - which is good, that it’s having an effect on fees - which is bad. More and more hirers see the day rate as a wage equivalent, so that Euro 500 or Euro 600 is multiplied by 5 and then by 52 and hiring agencies are saying, why should you get so much money?

But back to the main point. We’re living in an increasingly educated society and those jobs previously reserved for smart, conencted people - journalism, TV production - just couldn’t be preserved any longer. Smart and connected people did blogging really well and became writing stars. But that A-list stardom quickly ossified so bright people who weren’t so well connected have migrated elsewhere to find their fulfilment. Is it to be found in Facebook, is it Second Life?

My itinerant electronic life comes down to finding the opportunities that will just make life a little easier, provide an income, and a bit of status in a role that amounts to something, and is part of a connection to decent people. What’s amazing is to see so many millions of people on the same journey.

My final answer to Vern was I really think there’s scope for more Huffington Post type online publications drawn from those in the blogosphere that didn’t make it to the A-list first time round. As well I think we could do some interesting projects across realities. The question is how to catalyse that project?

i think blogging has thrown up its star

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