I stumbled upon an article (on CNN.com, Lord help us) that, if I may radically condense it, affirms the notion that there is simply too much information out there and that it is up to content “hyperaggregators” to separate the wheat from the chaff for us.
The net result being that we are continually fed and re-fed the same information – much the same way that major broadcast networks and Hollywood studios and big record labels decide what we will be watching and listening to.
This is wrong, wrong, wrong. Hyperaggregators are not the way forward. Learning how to Google to find the precise thing that you want is the way forward. I subscribe to the RSS feeds of many blogs that have hundreds or thousands of subscribers. I also subscribe to blogs that have less than ten subscribers. To tell you the honest truth, I often value what I learn and discover at the blogs with less than ten subscribers more than the others. The others sometimes begin well, but falter when they realize they have a readership and worry too much about expanding that readership, rather than continuing to provide interesting and important perspectives. That is just one possible result – mostly they remain interesting, but I enjoy the specific focii and the fine granularity of information at the smaller sites. Their level of targeted dialogue can’t be beat.
My friend Alison is spending some time doing research in Fredericton, which is not the centre of the universe but is a very functional city that holds the honour of being host to North America’s first free, public Wi-Fi network. In one of her recent blog posts she notes:
Not everyone is looking for the Next Big Thing, nor to sharpen the cutting edge. Many people want to live in places where they feel safe, happy, and comfortable, with good jobs and the same advantages as everyone else. They also want their efforts to be recognized when they do something remarkable – like becoming their own telecommunications operator (AND giving away free Wi-fi) when the big companies tell them they are too far away from the main markets to get fair rates.
Amen, Alison. Fredericton quietly did its thing (who knew they were the first place in North America to have a free public Wi-Fi network? I didn’t) and considers quality of life for its residents over all. Not everyone is looking for the Next Big Thing, indeed.
So go away, hyperaggregators. I don’t want your watered down vision of what you think I should be reading and absorbing into my life. I am going to continue to relish reading the content that would not make the hyperaggregators cut, just as I continue to enjoy and participate in a local civic life that might only make sense here. “Bleeding edge” and “trailing edge” are relative terms.