kobi marenko
Blogs Win Magazines
July 19th, 2006Photo courtesy of UPort
Last year, ‘blog’ was one of the leading terms that Wikipedia users were searching for. The word was mentioned in numerous articles and water cooler conversations, only most people didn’t quite understand what a ‘blog’ was all about.
This year, however, it seems like all of that is changing.
If you compare the number of Google searches for newspapers, magazines and blogs, you will find that in the last few months, and for the first time ever, blogs win over magazines in the number of searches as well as in the volume.
What does it mean? Is the world of content changing? The answer, in my opinion, is yes and no. Ever since Homer wrote the Iliad nothing has changed in terms of content. People want a good story and they don’t care about the medium. The story can be told at night by the fire, in a book, on a TV show or written in a blog. In this aspect nothing has changed.
But what has changed is the new-found option and ability of the average everyday person to reach a target audience. This is the real reason why blogs are such a revolution - no less than Johann Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press.
So, when will the blogs win over the newspapers? Is it simply a matter of time or maybe it’s a matter of time till newspapers become blogs? My guess is both.
K.
July 20th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
Unchanged in terms of content? I don’t agree. With all due respect, if you and Achilles would meet and you would try to tell him what you consider a ‘good story’ most likely you will end up either in his bed, or worse, dead. Despite our inclination to view modern soap and Greek epics as made of the same ‘dramatic’ stuff there are few things that have changed radically in content wise. Just to give few examples - interiority was invented, consciousness-stream was used, and although all narratives have a beginning and an end, not all the literature we know uses narratives (Beckett, for instance). So while I would not say that materiality is what determined consciousness, I would also not want you to say that “materiality determines materiality, and consciousness…well it was always the same drek.”
July 22nd, 2006 at 6:24 am
That is interesting… by what percent have the google searches changed?
July 24th, 2006 at 5:34 am
i agree with mr homer s. regarding the change of a good story in the last 2000 years but i still think that the need for a good story stays the same