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19 Sep 2009 07:27 pm

The Online Metropolis

Steven Berlin Johnson edited an anthology in which my "Why I Blog" essay and Nick Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid" article appear. Johnson's draws a connection between the two:

No doubt the intensity and immediacy of the feedback has its own disruptive force, making it harder for the blogger to enter the contemplative state that his forebears in the print magazine era might have enjoyed more easily. Sullivan’s description could in fact easily be marshaled in defense of Carr’s dumbing-down argument--except that where Carr sees chaos and distraction, Sullivan sees a new kind of engagement between the author and the audience. Sullivan would be the first to admit that this new kind of engagement is noisier, more offensive, and often more idiotic than any traditional interaction between author and editor. But there is so much useful signal in that noise that most of us who have sampled it find it hard to imagine going back. After all, the countryside was more polite, too. But in the end, most of us chose the city, despite all the chaos and distractions. I think we've made a similar choice with the Web today.

I haven't changed my mind, but I have no idea where this experiment is headed. The Dish is now unrecognizable in many ways from the white-on-navy scroll screen I began on. It has become both a blog and a daily magazine and a news hub and a community of sorts. But that's the fun: it's pure luck to be in a generation that gets to invent a whole new medium. And the invention - and reinvention - is still in its infancy.

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