With every new technological innovation comes the usual hyperbole that it will either change humanity as we know it for the good (the Segway, virtual reality) or the bad (cloning people, bloggers have no journalism training and undermine the values of the First Amendment and Capitalism by ripping off the MSM's legitimate work and then skewering it to the blogger's own devious political ends).
As we learned late last week from a regional study by the Pew Research Center, "ninety-five percent of Baltimore stories with fresh information came from 'old media,' the vast majority from newspapers." What that tells us is that while there are a lot of blogs out there, they are parasitic by nature and without the legitimate brand names they crib from to launch their commentary, they're just kings without clothes. Once The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal or any other number of MSM sites start making people pay for any and all their content, it will be interesting to see which blogs will adapt and which will just become more niche and echo-chamber-like.
Bereft of original content, sites like Instapundit and Crooks and Liars will dive deeper into the shallows of their intellectual base and fellow travelers and become even more shrill and annoying.
On the other side of the new media cavalcade we have Twitter and Facebook. As a needy journalist with woeful self-confidence issues both products offer an amazing outlet to let me ponder and proclaim all things "ME!"
Still, in recent weeks, social media and especially Facebook have garnered much more importance in my life. Bob is still a couple of weeks away from arriving here and I find there are times when I am not in the office, particularly on weekends, that despite being in one of the most congested cities in the world, I realize that I am very, very alone and completely disconnected from the familiar.
Yes, there's Starbucks and McDonald's, blockbuster movies like Avatar (in English), and this town is flooded with so many international luxury good stores, it's actually kind of obscene. But like some episode of the Twilight Zone or Star Trek, even though the brands are familiar, the logos instantly recognizable, there's always something a little "off" about things when you get them: Ketchup is a little too sweet, "American Blueberry Scones" don't taste like anything I've ever had in America. (They have a problem with bread here. It's texture is all wrong. Loaves of white bread are so airy and spongy, they make Wonderbread seem wholesome and grainy.)
These inconsistencies get compounded at certain times of the day and I know exactly when those times are: Never is my Crackberry ever more quiet than between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. Hong Kong time.
It's during these hours, whether I am in a little Central boite having a mid-afternoon cocktail or snack, or trying to get furniture and furnishings for the new apartment, do I realize I am far from home. Between those hours, all my family and friends on the East Coast and West Coast are fast asleep. If it's 3 p.m. in Hong Kong, it's 2 a.m. in New York, and when it's 8 p.m. here, it's midnight in Los Angeles.
Sometimes, I can't wait for 9 p.m., for as the sun comes up on the East Coast and people go to work or fly to meetings in Orlando or Denver or Seattle, I watch close friends, family and professional acquaintances check into hotels via Gowalla, become fans of Klaus Naomi, post YouTube clips of great blues guitarists or fill their status updates with everything from the incredibly mundane -- "loves Starbucks Grande Lattes" -- to the wonderfully moving -- "both Mom and baby are doing fine."
I never thought I would become a huge fan of social networking, and while I think some assertions are laughable -- in the wake of last summer's demonstrations in Iran, some proclaimed Twitter the "new CNN": Hello? For all it's problems when it first began, at least CNN had a business model -- I do appreciate the value of how Facebook keeps people connected as life and circumstance push us apart.
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