Alternative Media

There were a number of reasons why I set up a blog. I wanted to:
1. Make a positive difference to people's lives
2. Express opinions I have on a whole range of topics
3. Establish a means of profiting from my ideas
4. Use the site as a means of opening up relationships with people moving in a similar direction
5. Receive feedback on my ideas - whether critical or affirming
6. Develop ideas beyond what the popular media does because the media sees their role as just reporting facts, which I see as a rather low-value proposition. One could argue that other media do that, but really there is not much in the world that does that is not of a proprietary nature.

Consider the following story in the Sydney Morning Herald Online version: "Property Council backs small bars change" on November 6, 2007. The story discusses saids that the Property Council of Australia supports the NSW governments "plan to encourage small bars, saying it will make city centres better for work, play and business". It saids that "Small bars in Sydney will soon be allowed to serve alcohol without food, and the cost of a liquor licence will be drop from $15,000 to $500 for a small bar and $2,000 for a hotel. They also will not have to conduct an expensive social impact assessment study". Thats useful information to the extent if I have any interest in drinking, setting up a bar or selling alcohol, commercial property or commercial fitouts, but might the value of the information have been further explored. This is the opportunity in online media, because this is big news. And there is an opportunity to sell - not just bare, brute facts - but value added market analysis. You might ask why this wasn't done. I suggest the reason is that:
1. The content is too specialised and intellectual - not a market companies trying to dominate the world want to bother with
2. Requires thinking - readers have no interest in being challenged
3. Its contentious - It shows outsiders know more than the media 'insiders'
Brute facts are not even reported. Most of the article were actually statements made up of restatements by the Property Council of NSW.

Its fortunate that facts cant be copyrighted, only the way facts are expressed, otherwise I couldn't use this material. And if I wasn't presenting this story as a critique or in some sense adding value to it, I could not even use direct quotes. But the media does not favour such analysis, even if people like me might occasionally buy newspapers. It would prefer it if there was no value-add because then everyone would be reading its content, rather than context that is:
1. Specialised to target the needs of a specific audience
2. Analysed to develop themes that help people use the information
3. Region or market specific

Having said that - maybe the opportunity likes in the fact that the media does not develop the idea. Maybe if the media was 'heralding' the developing of a plethora of bars across Sydney, then there would in fact be alot of unthinking idiots developing bars across Sydney. Whereas if the story was just bare facts, fewer investors would see the opportunity. In this case value becomes proprietary. Closed off for others to read, and therein lies the opportunity for third-party value-adding. The internet of cause provides content for free, in the hope of making money from secondary opportunities like product sales, advertising, etc.

Its only with the development of the internet that content value adders have an outlet for being discovered because there are few other opportunities for getting market exposure. These are the opportunities:
1. Google - if people want to find you they can search for you using Google or Yahoo by subject or title on the internet
2. Social networking - if you have have compatible interests with other people you can find them on the internet through media like Facebook, MySpace, blogs, etc

This should highlight how profoundly important these social networking sites are. But they will get better because once they become dynamic streaming video, where you can have a conversation with other people with ease, you will be communicating with someone in a very personal sense, like they were your neighbour, and I think this will really transform how we relate to others on the internet. I think we won't need those small neighbourhood bars because why would you go talk to a neighbour up the road whom has nothing in common with you, nothing particularly interesting to say, whether because he is not interesting or you just couldn't find a common thread. Online media will get better at helping you find meaningful relationships. It will provide:
1. The context for interaction - by allowing you to respond to others content as well as to filter out people whom you can't meet with physically
2. The flexibility to focus on better relationships - by blocking unsatisfying ones
3. The basis for a 'more real relationship' at least to the extent that people are no longer just an identity on the WWW.

You might wonder whether you need to physically meet these people. I think its important to develop a relationship because its realtionships should be progressive. You always want to know more, and meeting people will give you that. I think these social networking websites will herald a new boom in personal productivity and happiness. We will be having more meaningful relationships because we will get a better sense of whom people are, and by trial and error we will be asking for and expressing more. This is therefore not a great time to be settling for someone - whether a personal or business partner - at least to the extent that you are locked in because the world is about to get alot more interesting. So where does this leave 'commitment', where you tie yourself to one person. I think the old concepts of marriage and partnership will become a lot more flexible and fluid and that is a good thing. We might even see those government supported institutions like 'monogamus mariages' growing into polygonamus relationships, if only to keep some continuity in parental support for parents. But dont we already have that. Its just that today we give people a false sense of 'worth' and 'achievement' by saying that since you earned your way into a relationship at marriage, you are worthy of the role 5 years, 18 years later, regardless of the fact that one partner might have grown faster than the other, and the laggard was a frustration for the duration of the relationship, and that the conflict need not have been there, except that the laggard was allowed to develop a false sense of security, which didn't work for anyone concerned. This is why astute people love corporate structures. You can preserve the continuity of a corporate entity but change the goals, values, people. They are a source of fluidity. Dogmatic social institutions are not, and governments, beyond their ability to enslave or coerce us, will become increasingly irrelevant in this emerging social context.
This might be the most important article you read for a while. You wont read it in the Sydney Morning Herald. And it was free! Go figure. Mind you the only time I read newspapers is when they are free.