Thanks to the Long Island Press for the kind words ...

Citizen Journalists

Long Island Blogs Tackle Topics From Politics To Sports To Rude Behavior In The Hamptons...And Beyond

By Long Island Press Staff

"It's 2 a.m., and that pepperoni pizza isn't nearly as enjoyable as it was four hours ago. You click on your ungodly expensive cable/satellite TV system, and despite hundreds of channels, there is nothing to watch.
That mode of leisure exhausted, you boot up your computer, because billions of websites can't deny you enjoyment, can they? But even then, it can be hard to see the forest for the trees, as you might scan hundreds of uninspired and/or un-updated pages that make you wish you had settled for the salad.
Fear not. The citizen journalist has your back. From our own acid-tongued Chick Dubinsky to LI master maven Lou Savinetti (http://longislandideafactory.blogspot.com), they bring thoughts and news the mainstream press never could."

Read the entire article here:

http://longislandpress.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=2&ArticleID=13617&TM=83529.21

Meta-editorialism: Part Five

A logical outgrowth of the Long Island 3.0 concept is a virtual mass communications network.

This would include all of the elements we have previously talked about including LIWIKI, Long Island Metadata Portal, Long Island Alert System(s) and the Long Island Congress (Virtual Community Congress, Long Island Citizen Media Network/Long Island Citizen Alert Network) inclusive) among the major concepts.

What does this mean for the traditional forms of mass communication? As the semantic or knowledge based web advances it obviously allows more choice not only in the type of information available, but how we receive it.

Traditional sources will still maintain a level of respect, but people will expect more from them. As the web 2.0 is beginning to demonstrate, there is an explosion of information and ideas available and the manner in which we interact with one another is becoming more and more sophisticated.

What is needed now is more structure to, what seems to be, chaos. It isn't really chaotic, its just that we have not fully developed the tools or the conceptual approach to use the abundance of information at our disposal in a consistently productive manner.

Long Island 3.0 in all its various current and yet to be developed forms, is an attempt to give some structure to the chaos so that we may use all available information for productive purposes.

A different view of change

"Although Mr. Keen's objections to the publishing and distribution tools the Web provides to aspiring artists and writers sound churlish and elitist he calls publish-on-demand services a just cheaper, more accessible versions of vanity presses where the untalented go to purchase the veneer of publications he is eloquent on the fallout that free, user-generated materials is having on traditional media."

Very thought provoking article. I'll most likely read his book before commenting in depth, although I think he is stuck on Web 2.0 and has not looked at the possibilities of a Web 3.0 approach, unless that is in his book somewhere.

Anyway, the genie is out of the bottle and although his observations have a lot of merit, the process which has started will not be reversed.

Perhaps he should look into how how to "professionalize" the "amateurs," since this era of organizational and, perhaps, media Darwinism will not always reward and respect tradition, but will reward instead those who adapt best to their environment.

A Paradigm Shift in Communications

As we further develop our "pan-Long Island-ist" approach to creating a Unified Theory of Regional Cooperation as contained within the Long Island 3.0 and Long Island Congress concepts, it becomes readily apparent that the manner in which we communicate with one another will undergo a paradigm shift of significant proportions.

It is only a matter of time before the established methods of receiving and analyzing data, whether through traditional media or otherwise, is turned on its head.

Imagine for example, organizations and individuals having access to a coordinated Long Island data reservoir from which they will be able to determine through established and "ad hoc" formulae information pertinent to their individual needs. Imagine further, that organizations can filter and reconstruct information and events to determine accuracy and to, in effect, create their own individualized "daily newspaper," advocacy position paper or any of the thousands of other uses for news and information. Furthermore, this individualized information will be available on a multitude of devices already in use and those not yet imagined.

All of the players in the news and information matrix will be held to a higher standard. Facts and information will be more readily available and constantly vetted for accuracy. How this information is interpreted, opined upon and ultimately put into practice is what will test the resolve and challenge Long Islanders.

Old forms will vanish and new ones will form as this "Organizational Darwinism" works its way through this new century and beyond.

Keep constantly in mind in how many things you yourself have witnessed changes already. The universe is change, life is understanding. Marcus Aurelius

Meta-Editorialism: Part Four

''A smart mob is a form of self-structuring social organization through technology-mediated, intelligent "emergent behavior". The concept was introduced by Howard Rheingold in his book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. According to Rheingold, smart mobs are an indication of the evolving communication technologies that will empower the people.''
Wikipedia, Smart Mob

What does this mean for the ability of mainstream media to influence public opinion and drive public policy? What does it mean for political parties? What does it mean for Long Island?

It is absolutely a brave new world folks. Will it help Long Island come together or drive us further apart?

I prefer to think the former rather than the latter.

What do you think?

Meta-Editorialism: Part Three

Good article on the concept of "crowd sourcing" and its application for online marketing.

While the information here is probably a little too broad for our present purposes, it does point what direction the web is headed and how it may affect the method by which the public interacts with media and government.

It also reinforces the idea of a multi-disciplinary approach to problem solving we talked about in previous posts.

Whether we are marketing products or marketing ideas, opinions and concepts, the processes for distributing the information are pretty similar.

Putting the "public" in a public alert system

Remember the old Civil Defense concept?

Any "mass alert/communication" process should include the general public as a vital component. With the advent of the semantic web, data is broken up into smaller units which then may be reformed into metadata sets and other "use specific" tasks. It allows the web to become, in essence, one big relational database. (Click on image for a larger view).

Traditional organizations and government of course will play the primary role in any distribution of "official" data. But with more and more data becoming available and the ability to use this data becoming more flexible, it is probable that over the near term, the "general public" will use this new found freedom to create its own sophisticated information gathering and "alert" systems outside the traditional sources.

Meta-Editorialism:Part Two

A preliminary diagram (I'm sure I missed something).

Word and other types of filters are critical to the end user's ability to access the great amount of information available. This information will only grow with Web 2.0 and the advancements of the Semantic (Knowledge) Web or Web 3.0.

We'll explore this in future posts.

Meta-Editorialism:Part One

How do editorial writers (editors/producers) stay relevant in the new Web 2.0 environment ?

Question. Why does the public care what an editorial writer thinks when there are so many bloggers and others out there with an opinion? Isn't their opinion as valid as the traditional editorial writer/producer?

There is a lot of content on the internet but how much of it is relevant content that furthers the public debate in a productive way?

Web 2.0 is content driven and has an insatiable need for new content every day. How can a traditional editorial staff provide this content? Maybe the answer is that it no longer can.

Perhaps editorial writers/producers must morph into "meta-editorialists" (A meta-editorial is "a researched and evaluated contribution") who act as gatekeepers, moderators and sometimes collaborators with the "best and brightest" minds in the region. This way there should be an endless stream of productive ideas, thoughts and opinions to draw upon and utilize.

On Long Island, there is a wealth of talent and many organizations and individuals who have much to add to the public discourse. The problem is access to traditional media and the built in audience it provides. One can build a large audience over the internet for not a lot of capital, but that still takes quite awhile to accomplish.

By giving a productive voice to a wide range of organizations and individuals, (not just the usual bulletin board "raves" and blog "flames" and YouTube "gotchas") to offer ideas and collaborate in a real way (LIWIKI etc.) traditional media can still serve its function of "neutral observer, dispenser of facts and opinion generator" while playing an active role in the reorganization of Long Island into regional powerhouse and a coordinated entity: Long Island 2.0.