Blogging and Podcasting is great... but what's next? (Brainstorm thread)

[nickgutierrez]

This is all coming off of the top of my head, so stick with me. If it sounds like something comes out of nowhere... it did. And by all means, offer up suggestions, ideas, technical knowledge and expertise, etc.

Blogs are great when it comes to giving the average person a voice. They've changed the way that mainstream media talks about politics - there is now a certain section of voices that weren't previously a part of the political landscape that now have a set-in-stone seat at the table. But it still feels to me that there is a barrier between presenter and audience that is counter-productive to what it is that we would like to do.

Podcasting is, in a way, a step in the right direction, but is still very presenter-focused. There's something about a voice that projects passion and energy in a way that writing simply can't, and that allows a podcaster to be in sync with his/her audience in a way that it's hard for most bloggers to accomplish. And a recent move by Apple and others to start including video in their podcasts is yet another tiny step toward interactivity.

The trend here seems to be that the presenters are making themselves more available to their audience, but this is having a somewhat indeterminable effect. The audience does a good job of distributing the content - whether by emailing/posting links directly or through sheer traffic - but in the end there is still a huge divide between presenter and audience that I find somewhat unnecessary on the internet. While it is certainly a step forward from how the flow of information used to be structured, the internet has a great potential for interactivity that, it seems to me, isn't being fully utilized by blogs and podcasts.

One of my favorite things about message boards such as DU is that the community itself is the presenter. The opinions expressed here are those of real people, the news presented in LBN is found by real people from sources that don't always make it into the normal course of political discussion, and the wall between presenter and audience exists only on a thread-by-thread level. And, because of the necessarily barely-existent relationship between presenter and audience, even on issues where there is massive disagreement among the community, the atmosphere has an element of coherence without cacophony.

The downside to DU is that there is no distribution mechanism for it "outside" of the internet. Podcasts and video podcasts can be downloaded. Blogs have a way of being able to cite a credible-sounding origin of the expressed idea in a way that a community-based forum has trouble doing (that is, "Kos" said this, "Huffington" said that - the big-name blogs are easily recognizable by the politically active, but even this isn't enough IMO).

So, creative and technically minded people of DU, how can we combine the interactivity of a community such as DU with a form of media that is easily accessible from the outside world? Think big here, people - the biggest strength of the internet is that it allows everyone to have a platform. Let's take this to its logical extreme, and see what we can come up with given the available technology, and the technology just around the bend.

In short: What's next?