The blogosphere is becoming day by day really really exciting 
…
You know creating content is an expensive and time- consuming business so different people have come up with different solutions, which you could use right away in your blog (if you have one 
):
- You have the techie solution like Techmeme, Google News and the likes that do not create any content at all. They just link to the most popular sites. If you are not techie at all, you can search for and group them manually into posts (Manual linkage is not so widespread, but I noticed that is increasing in popularity)
- Alternatively, you can take snippets of blogs from different sources adding the source in the end, perhaps using the same pictures, almost same comments… Even better, you can find another blog that share your excitement on a specific topic and sooner than later you will end up writing on each other’s blogs with same comments over and over. That’s also quite popular.
You can also be sponsored by a company! Nowadays some companies start blogs just to increase the popularity of a particular product (e.g. Nseries WOM World) - Or you can simply steal content from other people. For this one you can use a variety of techniques, from a simple copy and paste to a more elaborated copy, paste and reword
Needless to say that all of the above don’t create any content whatsoever, they just echo the tiny content that was created in the beginning, wasting everyone’s time reading, listening and watching the same thing over and over…
I hope that Web3.0 will not turn out to be a bigger echo chamber than Web2.0
-Reda
PS. The top picture is not actually mine I took it from www.blaugh.com
2 responses so far ↓
1 Jonathan Bailey // Nov 7, 2007 at 6:46 pm
I think the problem is that linking to content and regurgitating what is already there takes less time and has greater rewards than creating your own.
The Web is a place of convenience and the sites with the most content get the most eyeballs. The way to get the most content isn’t to create it, but to aggregate it. Though aggregation has become something of a buzz word of late, it’s just a fancy way of saying produce nothing new.
There needs to be a way to reward originality reliably, something we don’t have, otherwise creators will start backing away from the Web and we’ll have less content to run through said echo chamber.
So, I’m with you on your hopes for Web 3.0.
2 Reda // Nov 8, 2007 at 12:45 am
I agree with you. Also, I think is quite evident that the main application or platform of information delivery in web2.0 are blogs and, as you pointed out in your comment, forwarding content to other people is the most rewarding with the least effort.
I think Web2.0 is about social networks and user-generated content as a response to the lack of understanding of user’s needs from the “publisher side” and rejection of existing content. Because there is no new good content tailored to user’s needs the user him/herself “has filled the gap”. (Tailored in the most general sense. I.e. Not just the content you want, but the way you want it, when you want it and now with the mobile platform it’s also going to be where you want it).
Web2.0 was the easier step from Web1.0 because it was just a matter of asking people to judge, give feedback and produce content and I think we have exausted most of the options now. There were a lot of efforts on building networking tool and in general a lot of progress on the user side (who sets the requirements of the required info) but not enough progress on the server/publisher side to deliver the right content… Also, during Web2.0 there was a rise of blogs because (I think) in a flat structure like internet a blog becomes an authorative source of decent and specific content (ie. more tailored because of the specific interest, chronological order which is easier to interact with “a chairman” who maintains a orderly discussion).
Now hopefully the focus will shift to refining the tools that deliver information to one user. It’s nice to have social networks, blogs etc… but I want to get the information my own way. They can do whatever they like “on the other side of the browser” (e.g. links, pagerank, regurgitating what is already there as you said and other stuff) but I want a tool that tailors “this side of the browser” to my needs…Something that adds the same value that google added to initial websearches… Perhaps, I just want the ultimate Google search
Regarding your last point what you are saying is quite possible. However, as I read once, unexpected outcomes can emerge from unanticipated places and I think creators will always go where there is someone that will consume their content. Like any group where “natural selection law” is applied they will fight for their own survival (e.g. by making sure that the end user is aware of who’s the original contributor) but I think “they will survive”
-Reda
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