Jamie Smyth in today's Irish Times [sub only]: "Eircom is threatening to postpone up to €1 billion in much needed investment after being told to cut prices by the regulator. The decision to review its five- year investment plan could seriously undermine the national telecommunications infrastructure." Jamie also has a good, long companion piece on this key unbundling decision here (hooray! We are finally unbundled! Sort of). But again, you'll need a subscription, or better go buy the paper!
10:49:56 AM  #   your two cents []

Survey: Will blogs wipe out professional journalists? [Scripting News] ...You know, this is a discussion (or is it an argument?) that to me, seems totally besides the point (as opposed to pointless), and one that I find seems increasingly out of touch with The Real World. It is like asking if the arrival of the home PC would wipe out professional programmers, because suddenly anyone (who could afford it) could write programs. Therefore, who would need professional software companies?

Accessibility to technology transformed the computing world, allowed some home users to create fantastic programs that became widely used, and in a few cases, did indeed allow people to create even something as complicated as an operating system (Linux, take a bow). When such things happen, they create waves, alter our perceptions of the given order of things, open doors to new possibilities. In some cases, the dominance of a market player can even be threatened (but I'll gladly bet against anyone who thinks Linux will 'wipe out' 'professional' [read: paid for it] programmers. And, er, as you can see, even the notion of 'professional' is pretty loaded here, and far too simplistic a category).

I think weblogs will shake up the way some topics are covered. I don't think weblogs will ever make people flee from newspapers, radio or television. Why? Because of many elements mentioned by many other thinkers in the past. Filtering: There are already millions of blogs and it's already way too difficult to decide which are trustworthy sources. I agree with Clay Shirky that such sources will probably aggregate in some way but even then, I don't want to have to wade through God knows what in order to find out what happened at yesterday's city council meeting, if indeed any blogger covered it. Despite the many criticisms about the accuracy of reporting, I trust a reporter with radio or print to have the contacts to get informed views on a subject to give a broad picture. Whereas most webloggers would never, ever get the access to many of the events that people want to read coverage of, simply because there are too many of them. Even if everything boils down to a few trusted bloggers (and it would still need to be a heck of a lot of them to cover the huge range of subjects I get, conveniently aggregated and edited, in my highly portable, daily copy of the Irish Times or The Guardian) , then who wants to spend the time dashing around the Net to read them or even looking at RSS feeds? These activities already take A LOT of my time, and I don't read/subscribe to all that many, and I don't spend that much time in front of a PC, and I don't want to read them on the weeny screen of my PocketPC. If the best/most trustworthy bloggers get aggregated on a single site, how is that different, then, from 'professional journalists'? Becaiuse there is no central editor? But if they are aggregated, they would probably need to be centrally edited, both for content and structure of the site. So where are we going with this, and these rather fragile definitions of what a 'professional' journo is?

And the idea of blogs 'wiping out professional journalists' assumes that the OTHER 95% of the globe which does NOT have web access nor can afford home PCs -- remember, the vast majority of the world's population, not we in our pleasant middle class enclaves of Western corporations, universities, and suburban homes -- will suddenly get online, either through PCs or devices. Yes, the mobile phone is moving fast into the developing world -- I heard last week at ISC about the use by poor Indian farmers of mobiles in some innovative ways -- but that same farmer is not going to give a you-know-what about a blog for quite some time.

On the other hand, radio and print are ubiquitous and cheap. In the heart of Soweto, you hear radios. And in small villages in Viet Nam. Newspapers are cheap and portable and can be shared and passed from person to person.

Weblogs are a fascinating development and it looks as if they are a very important one. They will cause the internet and communication and communities to be thought about in new ways, and shake, rattle and roll some aspects of the world. But I think -- as so often happens -- people are looking at a new technological tool and misunderstanding its future significance. Yes, it will change things. But I'd wager, in very few of the ways we think they might, right now. I remain committed to the belief that weblogs will be complementary to 'professional' news sources, and the existence of both will create opportunities on both sides, just as Linux and other home-(or semi-home) brewed programs from committed programmers have created jobs, careers and companies. The revolution will happen, but probably not in the way you're expecting. Or, sometimes, hoping.

10:36:24 AM  #   your two cents []

Torvalds enters SCO-Linux fray. Linux founder Linus Torvalds says he agrees with some criticisms of SCO but calls for restraint in the tumult. SCO's chief, meanwhile, says legal action against Torvalds is unlikely. [CNET News.com]
10:00:25 AM  #   your two cents []

Boing Boing Blog: Seeds in Space. "Cool NASA photos and streaming movies of plant experiments on the International Space Station." Link, Discuss

 

9:58:44 AM  #   your two cents []

Amazon vs. Apple in music downloads?. As the songs fly off the shelves of Apple's iTunes Music Store, analysts say Amazon.com could take the next crack at the retail music-download business. [CNET News.com]
9:55:12 AM  #   your two cents []

Baby Bells to twist fiber together. Three usually bitter rival carriers--BellSouth, SBC and Verizon--say they will cooperate on the fiber-optic expansion of their networks. [CNET News.com]
9:53:14 AM  #   your two cents []

Web offers 'Star Wars' sneak peek. LucasFilm, the makers of the blockbuster outerspace-fantasy film series, will offer a sneak preview of its redesigned Web site and first-ever online subscription service. [CNET News.com]
9:50:17 AM  #   your two cents []

New Scientist: Handsome Men have the Best Sperm. "The characteristics of a person's face have long been regarded as an indicator of health. But this is the first direct evidence to suggest a man's reproductive quality correlates with his facial characteristics." But here's the best sentence: "The men's semen quality was measured according to World Health Organization guidelines." Who'd have guessed the WHO has semen quality guidelines?!
1:16:39 AM  #   your two cents []