While the old media sinks in their own quicksand, blogging continues to grow

There is a paradigm shift taking place before our eyes. Vertical, centralized, command and control organizations are in decline. This is largely due to cheap universally available information, thanks to the internet. As reported here earlier, the daily newspaper in most cities is dying.

The media communications agency has published its Wave 3 report, after having interviewed 17,000 representative Internet users from around the world on their use of social media. The report is the third in a series that examines how Internet usage trends are changing, and points out that the trends of both reading and writing for blogs are still growing.

Universal McCann found that 45 percent of those surveyed have started a blog, up 14 percent since June 2007. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a handful of Asian countries led the pack, with China, Taiwan, and South Korean users all reporting over 70 percent participation in blogging. By comparison, Internet users in the US only had 26.4 percent participation, with the UK at 25.3 percent and Canada at 22.5 percent—perhaps because we have collectively had access to the Internet for much longer, we are more curmudgeonly when it comes to adopting new trends like blogging. Still, those surveyed expressed positive feelings about using blogs as a means of expressing themselves, for companies to communicate with customers, and for socializing with friends. (Ars Technica)

Newspapers love to blame the blogger for their downfall, and they are correct in doing so to a point. The old media never learned the first rule of business: if you do not provide what people want, someone else will. That is unless you can, with the help of government, limit competition. Newspapers and broadcast network lost their monopolies on the control of information before they understood what was happening. The same rules apply to any information based enterprise, and to government. The era of bigger is better is over.