The internet is all about the content. This seems like a bleeding obvious statement, but it is amazing how little understood this is. Content is difficult to create. Sitting every morning looking for today’s post is in fact a bit difficult, and I guess that it would be incredibly easy just not to bother and not write any opinions whatsoever, just links. But this is not what blogging is about, I think. The whole point about the internet is that people interact, share ideas and opinions, find useful information and use it and reuse it for their own benefit.

So, content is what people are looking for, and this is why Google has become so important. We want content (text, pictures, opinions, news, poetry, song lyrics), and the search engines help us to get it. IT is becoming increasingly obvious that content also needs to be free of charge, people will be less likely to pay for content when there is so much free one out there. So who pays for all the content? Is it just hobbyist academics? Is it just well-intentioned people who like to share ideas? When you really look at the internet, you realise that it is the largest socialist experiment in history. In strict capitalist terms of markets, costs and rewards, it should not work. Why would people give-up their free-time to provide content?

I don’t know, ask millions of bloggers around the world. I guess that there is the hope that there is somebody out there reading.


1 Comment

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Andrew Ducker · April 12, 2005 at 3:12 pm

The thing I like about Livejournal is that when people choose to 'friend' me, I know about it. This lets me know that over 200 people think I'm worth reading, at least intermittently.

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