The World is Changing
The Gutenberg Press revolutionized Western Civilization by lowering printing costs so anyone could read anything.
The rise of free, global publishing is challenging the mass communications model as anyone can publish anything.
Every person online is now a publisher, indexed forever by a ubiquitous global search engine.
The world is changing.
It’s just beginning.
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And to think:
the printing press was only created 550 years ago
the first full-service advertising agency started only 130 years ago
the television was only commercially available 70 years ago
the internet was only commercially promoted 30 years ago
In some ways, we talk about these mediums as if they’ve been around forever, and in some cases as if they’re dinosaurs.. but in the grand scheme of civilization – they’re just a heartbeat.
I’m pretty sure we’ll see more change in the next year than we’ve seen in the past three.
And that’s awesome.
The Gutenberg Press revolutionized Western Civilization by enabling – eventually – anyone to read. I’m not so sure about “anything” — The Freedom of Information Act still only gets you so far
Inspiring stuff. Can’t say much more then that. Really cool to see it laid out like that.
Printing Press. Blogs. Morse Code. Facebook. Shorthand. Arpanet. Napster. Hieroglyphs. Twitter.
Gutenburg to Fanning, Ancient Egypt to Steve Jobs and now anyone who wants to share thoughts and ideas can do so.
Yes, exciting indeed. Great post, Todd.
The point you missed, though, that as the ability to publish and create is democratized, the responsibility to think critically and self analyze follows in its wake.
I fear that people’s ability to think critically and turn on the bullshit filter has waned a bit as we’ve relied on a professional press.
We also have to remember to play the audience role from time to time. Creating and publishing are great but if you’re always talking, you aren’t listening. It goes both ways.
Short, easy, and well said.
The revolution is not letting everyone publish, as much as allowing everyone to read. The platform for publishing would not be the same without attracting readers – and twitter is incredible proficient at attracting readers to the proper content.
Now, let’s go work on some contextual web thingie to replace twitter…
The arrival of the Gutenberg was heralded by many of the same predictions as social media – the great equalization, participation by all, unite the masses…
But the battle is on for control of the index. Search engine optimisation is the new frontier. Could this be the empire strikes back for gatekeepers and big media?