The noise
MKS:
I’ve been speculating for quite some time now that information overload would reach a point where people would take steps to simplify their sources of information.One easy way to do that is to turn to the newspaper, both print and online.
I dunno. Seems to me that people take in so much noise that they have to let it out. Hence blogs, facebook, twitter, etc. I imagine soon that online newspapers (oxymoron) that allow instant reader input via comments and such will overtake those that do not. The papers that figure out people also want to be heard will succeed.
December 10th, 2009 at 11:13 am
The Tennessean used to have a very active comments section at the bottom of every article.
Then, they changed it so you could still comment on the article, but you had to go to another page to make or READ comments.
The comments have died down. Significantly. I wonder if they understand the MORE PAGEVIEWS=MORE REVENUE correlation.
December 10th, 2009 at 11:54 am
When checking out a news story that pops on my Google News Alerts, the first thing I do is scroll to the bottom of the page to see if there’s a comment section.
If there’s not, more often than not, I don’t even bother reading the piece.
If they’re not interested in my opinion, I’m not interested in theirs.
Most of the time, even when I blog about something I ran across, I also leave a comment at the source.
December 10th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I agree with the above comments with one caveat – if there are too many comments I’m also not interested. If I’m shouting into the wind my comment won’t be read.
December 10th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
I kind of figure I could always blog about if I wanted to publish my opinion.
December 10th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
“….simplify your source of information”, buy a newspaper?
Uh, did they mean to say eliminate your source of information?
December 10th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
I limit my information inputs to those I have found most useful over time. A newspaper? I don’t have a parakeet anymore, so I have no need for a birdcage liner.