Note to the Reader :
What I'm interested in is the model that Josh Marshall has created. I had two items hit me over the weekend.
First, I saw this clip, which had these numbers as I type this.
Asst. Professor Michael Wesch has certainly made one hell of a clip.
Then the LA Times wrote a great piece on just what Josh Marshall has created at TPM
Both are talking about parts of the same thing. I've been wondering about all this myself. I wrote about this before I found the NewsVine pages. Back on
Jan. 4th. Where's All This Going ?
In it I wrote about two great sites that are examples of what Prof. Wesch is talking about in his clip.
They are
And
Both of these guys do their own web based art work, as well as write great pieces on their sites.
What I'm driving at, is that we have reached some sort of mile marker here on "The Information Super Highway".
Josh Marshall took a 100,000 "stringers", and has put Alberto Gonzales behind the 8-ball. He also deserves more credit for what he did with the Abramoff Scandal than has been given so far. If Little Green Footballs got Dan Rather, Talking Points Memo is about to nail The Attorney General of the United States. That's a big deal on a lot of levels.
On a blog level, a hell of a lot of power just flowed Josh's way. It will be interesting to see what he does with it. Talking Points, has become an institution on the web, in 7 years. He did it with writing, and the new platforms that let's us all show up in these little electronic town squares, coffee shops, and beer halls.
Back in the 80's I had a screen printing business, when I sold it, I gave my mom an Apple II C I had used just for record keeping. She took that Apple, and went online because she was a genealogist. The things she did with it in her research, took my breath away. The web of friends she had was amazing. The multiplier effect that the Times article talks about with Josh, was working for my mom 17 years ago.
But, now we have this rich graphic tool box, and a new wave of writer / artists that are using the web in some really powerful ways. It takes my breath away.