The Disruptive Technology of New Media (Part II)

"There are dark places in the galaxy where few tread. Ancient centers of learning, of knowledge... But I did not walk alone. To be united by hatred is a... fragile alliance at best. But my will was not law. There were disagreements. Ambition. And hunger for power. There are techniques within the Force against which there is no defense. I was cast down. Stripped of my power. Exiled. I suffered... indignities. And fell into darkness."
―Kreia to the Jedi Exile

Yin and Yang

The New Media phenomena has not only touched many aspects of traditional media like newspapers, radio and television, it has breached even the walls of adult entertainment and business and finance.

Take for example the Playboy Empire. One can argue the Playboy brand is a bastion of traditional adult entertainment and is under siege. According to Silicon Alley Insider, in April 2008, YouPorn attracted 3.2 million US unique visitors, up 1300% from the previous year. Similar websites like RedTube, XTube had likewise stellar growth.

(It might interest you that the same site also reported in December, 2008 that even mobile phone porn market is feeling the crunch.)

A few days ago, Henry Blodget of Silicon Valley Insider posted "12 Media Properties That Are Toast."

Which makes particularly entertaining when the US Porn industry seeks a bailout.

Though not blogs, there are sites on the internet that deal with everything from fan fiction to erotic fiction and likewise represent an alternative (but I believe not a replacement) to traditional medium of fictional work.

This is what is happening abroad. And while the context in the Philippines is much, much different largely because the local population isn't wired, these transformative changes are profound.

That isn't to say there aren't any dark corners on the Philippine-corner of the web. How many blog and scandal sites can you google? Are these blog sites any less important or any less disruptive than other types of blogs or even traditional magazines, and entertainment oriented publications?

The world of the Internet isn't simply about the political or science or technology or adult entertainment. The broader brushstroke reveals profound thinking from business and finance.

In our previous post we mentioned the power of Twitter. StockTwits for example, leverages Twitter to bring about real ideas, real time.

Another awesome place to be in is AlphaTrends. It is a site that tries to give objective and unbiased technical analysis on the market. This site leverages YouTube beyond the comedic, and beyond mundane to bring about technical analysis. Here's a snippet of his financial video:



The Broader Brushstroke

2008's Nobel Prize winner, and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote in the Great Illusion:

So far, the international economic consequences of the war in the Caucasus have been fairly minor, despite Georgia’s role as a major corridor for oil shipments. But as I was reading the latest bad news, I found myself wondering whether this war is an omen — a sign that the second great age of globalization may share the fate of the first.

If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, here’s what you need to know: our grandfathers lived in a world of largely self-sufficient, inward-looking national economies — but our great-great grandfathers lived, as we do, in a world of large-scale international trade and investment, a world destroyed by nationalism.
Writing in 1919, the great British economist John Maynard Keynes described the world economy as it was on the eve of World War I. “The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth ... he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world.”

And Keynes’s Londoner “regarded this state of affairs as normal, certain, and permanent, except in the direction of further improvement ... The projects and politics of militarism and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies, restrictions, and exclusion ... appeared to exercise almost no influence at all on the ordinary course of social and economic life, the internationalization of which was nearly complete in practice.”

But then came three decades of war, revolution, political instability, depression and more war. By the end of World War II, the world was fragmented economically as well as politically. And it took a couple of generations to put it back together.
So, can things fall apart again? Yes, they can.

While Krugan speaks of a broader brushstroke, the same can be said that all this is made possible the communications medium that is the Internet, which in turn gives rise to New Media and New Possibilities. The broader internet has shaped the way entertainment, information--- once the sole property of Old Media into the hands of ordinary people.

New Media and the Internet gives rise to people can discern information for themselves. It gives rise to choice and responsibility in ways that exceed anything that has gone before. It is my choice to click on an adult entertainment blog as much as it is my choice to click on StockTwits.

New Media is about interactivity. It is about content producers and content consumers interacting because they're one and the same thing. That's scary for Old Media because once they were the only ones talking and everybody else was listening. Now everybody is talking and everybody is listening.

That's profound.

I do not doubt that there should be some ethics in blogging. For journalist-bloggers the real question is, are you practicing your ethical standards even on your blog? For bloggers such as myself--- I'm no journalist. I can only blog as honest as I see it and call it as I see it. my moral and intellectual compass is all I have. That's my ethical standard. And for everyone it is for people who read our work to decide if what we write, say or show is bullshit or not. It's called discernment and something people of the 21st is required to do, given all this power.

And yes, we all make mistakes so why be afraid of it? It's the only way to learn, correct?

The beauty of blogging and New Media is that it gives a voice where sometimes it gets swallowed out as Marck in his This is for the People of the Sun wrote about. And I agree. Their story needs to be heard just as equally the success and trouble of Ed Panlilio needs to be.

To me the profanity in all this isn't whether there are Not Safe for Work Videos or Photos. In a democracy, people get offended. Let's get over ourselves. The conservatives naturally are opposed to nude photos. That's great you know--- but please let those who do appreciate such things enjoy it. You don't have to go to that site. You don't have to click on it. 

The profanity isn't if someone blog something and things got out of hand. The truth as in the de la paz case, came out. It was through actively discussing the issue with everyone talking about it that allowed the truth to come out. 

The deeper profanity for me is when people get ideas to "regulate" the Internet, to set rules where there shouldn't be none. To me, that's why there should be a discussion on New Media. My one exception would be to limit mature content for those who are not adults. Beyond that, let personal choice, our own moral compass, discernment and free will decide, what is it that I want to do?

This is the disruptive power of New Media: our intelligence and moral compass is so better served because the Internet and the New Media it has given birth to is without rules, when it is Laissez-faire.