According to Robin Good, The Individual Is The Epicenter Of The New Media Revolution. I love this manifesto of the individual cultural creative - tech ronin - newsmaster. I've had Robin bookmarked for eons and read his blog regularly but this focus will have me champing at the bit to read more.
The individual is going to be the center of these new universes. More and more, the skilled and capable individual will play an important role in the way that news will be created, customized and consumed by others.
News reporters, highly specialized journalists, researchers and investigators will be reporting 24/7/365 on the most disparate topics, and with a much higher degree of precision and depth than any other commercial publishing venture has been able to offer so far.This weblog is called tech ronin for a reason. It has its focus on things from the individual point of view - unlike so much good information that is subtly *tainted* by the *what will sell to corporate?* point of view.
My guess is that it goes that way because so many of us bloggers are selling our services/products to corporations. Nothing wrong with that, I just think there's a big need in the middle between strictly personal needs and corporate needs. It is that growing segment of free agents and avid *hobbiests* and passionate *amateurs*.
I've been on my own - outside the corporate walls - for 18 years now. I love it. I direct my work and products towards individuals and small groups (maybe 10% of them are in corporate workgroups).
I need to hear about tools, environments, experiences and trends from the personal point of view. Directed to the current and future free agents amongst us who need to discover and invent how to negotiate this changing and unpredictable world without a *good job*. For people who will no longer put up with being labeled, treated and manipulated as consumers by corporations or big government.
What's great about Robin's piece is that he's saying - we are the ones. This is where it's at. Self-published citizen journalists of all sorts: bloggers, wikizens, forum participants and *commenters* take their place on a scale never imagined beside traditional writers, journalists, artists, pamphleteers and writers of letters to the editor.
We're the future. I'm already signed up but I sure like having company. There's lots more in the post than excerpted here. Check it out!