Isn't the Internet amazing?

I'm watching my Nikon Coolpix 5700 travel across country in UPS's hands.

Right now it's in San Bruno, CA. I wish I could go and pick it up.

I guess it'll be here tomorrow or Monday.

The One True B!X asks: "...how can the mythical weblog journalist (one not attached to any existing media enterprise) hope to access so much of what might be sometimes necessary to access first-hand? Will we forever be relegated to cannibalizing the first-hand journalism of others?"

My answer: this will totally depend on the story.

Who will cover an earthquake in Silicon Valley better? The professionals or the amateurs (read the average joe on the street?) I think the amateurs will, at least at first, because there'll simply be more of them and we'll be closer to the action. The San Jose Mercury News only has, what, 100 journalists? There's no way they can compete against the millions of people in this area who have Web browsers and who will start sharing information with each other and us via email and weblogs.

Yes, many stories will be better covered by professionals. But, as more and more people get into weblogging, that will change too.

The real interesting thing will be how the professional press will change in response to webloggers.

Ten years ago the professional press decided on all the stories that they were going to cover.

Today, the webloggers are driving more and more stories. More and more "professional journalists" are watching weblogs for stories.

Plus, as people interested in specific things (for instance, you know that I'm very interested in Windows XP and now the Nikon Coolpix 5700) you know that I'll cover those topics pretty well and tell you when anything important happens.

Oh, the Nikon Coolpix started showing up in stores in the UK and other countries today.

Did you see any other "professional" journalist figure that out (and if they did, did any find that important enough to mention in their newspapers or Web sites?)

How are we going to construct the infrastructure of journalism?

Well, check out http://www.dpreview.com. It's done by one guy. It's better than any photography magazine I've ever read. It's free.

Isn't that infrastructure? I'll bet that Phil (the guy who runs DPReview) gets a few interesting calls from camera manufacturers. Nikon might never call me, but they'll certainly call him. His site is sorta like a weblog (although it doesn't use the same format).

Anyway, why do we need to compete with the professionals? I don't see any need to.

I'll write stuff that makes me happy and occassionally that'll include some stuff that'll scoop the competition.

Did you notice that I scooped the world with news about Yahoo making tons of money on Yahoo personals? Heh. (Yahoo this week released good financial news, largely on the strength of its personal and subscription sites).

Of course, that wasn't journalism per se cause I didn't have a source that would go on the record. But my neighbor is real and he really does run the Yahoo Personals division. There are some advantages to living in apartments in Silicon Valley and paying $1195 to rent a one-bedroom apartment.

Oh, great, now the Mac people have proof that I'm stupider than they are. :-)