Monday, June 04, 2007

The New Online Order

My quarterly subscription of International Affairs Chatham House
dropped therough the post. You can always bet there's going to be an article dissecting the new world order, but it got me thinking on the train to work: what about the new online order?

In the past few years we have all grown to become accustomed to a daily fix of lattes, RSS and a further cruise around our favourite sites. They are countless, but a new online order is evolving, which runs a parrallel course to the bricks and mortar world. This really is the Matrix.

So whilst they are legion Mindy McAdams , MultimediaShooter, Cliff Etzel , Adrian Monck ,Peter Ralph, Joe Weiss , Social Media (J D Lassica), Andy Dickinson, students at the university of westminster, Ian Reeves Rob Chiu - the Ronin Hillman Curtis and newstoday are a few places I sneak in for a warm cup of tea and a biscuit.

I guess soon the way protocol technologies going, my IP will soon flag me up when I try to sneak in.

"Er hi er Peter?"

Which all gives rise to this newish phenomenon of a new online order. There are differences, a generalisation, but I do believe that something is brewing worth many doctorates. Who am I kiddin? They're already a feature of hundreds of books.

The hierachy in news offline is highly guarded, whilst that online is a temporary transaction between you and your new friend. Interestingly then not all brill commentators offline make inviting bloggers online. A bit of humility goes a long way. Of course that inverse equation of the more experienced you are the more humble you become works most places.

But unless you want metaphorical arrows slung at you, then best to be yourself - hoping that you are one of those people who would gladly get the first round and then take us on the tour of your news outfit :) . This edifying style was so obvious when I first met Dan Gilmore a couple of years ago in San Antonio. A nice guy then and nice guy now and his story encapsulates the new world online order per-fect-ly.

" At some point I realised the audience I was writing for knew more than I did, so I kinda became a facilitator", he says.

Friends you will rarely hear such magnanimity in the corridors of broadcast newsrooms. No, no, no.. I'm not slating broadcasting.

Cocksuredness is a trait of youth and zeal. That said perhaps the online world has less to lose, unfazed by status, they just get on with it. Where else would you leave the details for a complex piece of code to a complete stranger? May the gift culture live on.
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I have started a cursory look at Future TV. I know, I know. No sooner have I muttered modesty than I appear to be wrapping myself with hubris. But not so, I'm really having fun just trend extrapolating - a kind of science fiction, personal Verne journey.

There was a piece in the Sunday Times yesterday that's got me all excited: Cloud Spotting. Yep plain clouds, not storms. If you've ever wondered like the author does: mind floating into oblivion peering out of your window seat 35,000 feet up, or seen the angels with wings in the culumus, you'll understand the fascination.

The dreamer; and that's what I'm doing in a series of pieces, which today feautures an incredible film maker Claudio Von Planta.

And then, then I had a look at Joe Weiss - Bloody nice! Bloody nice ! And that MUST be the order of things to come.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm so useless I can't even get a bloglines feed sorted - it's great for bringing you face to face with your inadequacies the online world!

Dr David Dunkley Gyimah said...

Don't believe a word Adrian says :)

He's created his site and all the adds on from a standing start, in an incredible short space of time.
And the inside track stuff is second to none.

Hi Adrian. Shall we do drinks sometimes?