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The Super Stars of New Social Media
sanspeak writes "The Wall Street Journal profiles the Moguls of New Media. It's not about the entrepreneurs who have created these new media islands like MySpace, YouTube and such, but people who participate in it and make it successful." From the article: "As videos, blogs and Web pages created by amateurs remake the entertainment landscape, unknown directors, writers and producers are being catapulted into positions of enormous influence. Each week, about a half-million people download a comedic video podcast featuring a former paralegal. A video by a 30-year-old comedian from Cleveland has now been watched by almost 30 million people, roughly the audience for an average "American Idol" episode. The most popular contributor to the photo site Flickr.com just got a contract to shoot a Toyota ad campaign."
Simple answer: they don't afford it. They just hope to be acquired soon by someone who will monetise their user base and apply a business plan to it. Either that or they've perfected the first major implementation of multicast without telling anyone.
... for free speech, amongst other things.
Apparently, one US Congressman wants public access to social networking sites banned, all under the guise of protecting kiddies from molesters. If you're not sure what I'm wittering on about, then read about the "Deleting Online Predators Act". Banning access to these sites in public places is only the start of further restrictions to your rights online or otherwise. Act now, or pay later. You choose, whilst you've still got freedom of choice anyway.
"As videos, blogs and Web pages created by amateurs remake the entertainment landscape, unknown directors, writers and producers are being catapulted into positions of enormous influence"
I wonder how many of these people of enormous influence will be around in a year never mind six months. A quick perusal of Forbidden illustrates exactly what it is famous for. Nothing wrong in viewing tottie but does everything have to be reduced to the level of the Sun's tit page.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Displaying text as graphics will make the web far less friendly for the vision-impaired (such as myself), while still leaving the information vulnerable to any data mining software that incorporates OCR.
camryl