As reported by Om Malik changes are happening at Technorati with Sifry stepping aside as CEO and eight people heading to the unemployment office. Following closely right after that Chris Brogan lets us know that PodTech has a new CEO and is making changes within the company.
So why is this happening?
Simple - Web 2.0 isn’t getting the adoption rates in the real computing world to make new media something bigger than its current small user base of early adopters. The fact is that this whole new media thing is still so much in its infancy that trying to explain what RSS feeds are let alone how to use them to Auntie May who thinks that the Internet is Google is incredibly hard to do in plain English.
Then you throw things like podcasts and vlogging into the mix and you start seeing a whole bunch of deer caught in the headlight looks. It also doesn’t help that because Web 2.0 companies start out without any business models to support themselves they are forced into a position of expanding into areas that weren’t part of the original vision.
Technorati is a good example of this as it was a great resource for the blogging world but because it needed to start proving itself as an income stream they had to enter the territory of Google instead of finding ways to make themselves even more invaluable to bloggers and those coming into the world of new media from the real world computer users.
However Technorati has found itself a victim of slow adoption of the new media by Auntie May and Grandpa Jim and the millions of people like them and as result those of us that are involved with new media could end up losing a great resource.
Conversation Tags: Web 2.0, new media, Technorati, PodTech, blogging, bloggers, podcasts, Om Malik, Chris Brogan
2 Comments
Yes - it is way too early to know where new media is going. Dave Winer had talked about a time when people made their own music/entertainment and we may be returning to that world. I tend to agree. But I have no idea when this change will take place. If I had to guess, it would be with my children’s children - a good 25 years out. We are witnessing a sea change but it will take time for people to adapt and technology to ‘improve’. But I think that big media has hit its zenith and ‘new media’ should not follow in its shoes..
one of the big lynchpins for “new media” is universal broadband - true broadband and not this watered down crap we’re being forced to pay through the nose for either.
And until things like RSS and podcasts and the such can be made available and understandable so that auntie May and Grandpa Jim can use it we will be stuck at a plateau.
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