The Evolution of the Blogosphere

And who are you, the proud lord said,

that I must bow so low?

Only a cat of a different coat,

that's all the truth I know.

In a coat of gold or a coat of red,

a lion still has claws,

And mine are long and sharp, my lord,

as long and sharp as yours.  - source:  http://goo.gl/Dpf5vt

+Demian Farnworth is apparently having a go at +Mike Elgan 's stance on blogging on Google+ versus the traditional blog.

This breaks down to the traditional either/or scenario - which some old guy in a youtube video says are a great opportunity to answer with both. So - how the hell can we get to the point where we can do both?

We apparently can't do both now, so let's look to the future. To look to the future, let's look at the evolution so far and try to predict the direction in which it is evolving. Where 'it' is the way content creators distribute their content (and how others redistribute it).

The blogosphere was a manifestation of the network's ability to eliminate publishing middle-men. This trend has continued. Google+ has created a means of closing the gap between creator and consumer, while at the same time limiting the creators means of monetizing his or her own content. Meanwhile, they profit from data collection - whether or not they use it to sell product to advertisers or to aid the government for other benefits is somewhat irrelevant.

Google is just another middleman that will be replaced as the evolution progresses. As both creators and consumers, we desire the ability to customize experiences. Do we really want to go to different social networks? I don't see why a single open-sourced portal can't display all of my content as I prefer it to be displayed.

At some point, we'll realize that the value in our collective data is valuable. The content we create and the sharing of content are statistically significant data. If Google can sell that information, then shouldn't we be getting a cut?

So, an open-sourced hub for all content that sells the aggregate data and partitions the proceeds to the participants of the hub.

How far are we really from the point when the average joe can render the movies in his head to a digital format he can share on the network? 5 years? 10?