Extra Thimian » Culture http://blog.thimian.com Suddenly Fiction Sun, 14 Feb 2010 04:03:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Fascinating.. http://blog.thimian.com/2009/10/13/fascinating/ http://blog.thimian.com/2009/10/13/fascinating/#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:54:42 +0000 Phill http://blog.thimian.com/2009/10/13/fascinating/

 

The power of visualizing data, what globalization can really mean, and possible power players. Highly recommended, that one.

]]> http://blog.thimian.com/2009/10/13/fascinating/feed/ 0 The Internet: The end of the gatekeeper? http://blog.thimian.com/2009/07/27/the-internet-the-end-of-the-gatekeeper/ http://blog.thimian.com/2009/07/27/the-internet-the-end-of-the-gatekeeper/#comments Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:57:02 +0000 Phill http://blog.thimian.com/2009/07/27/the-internet-the-end-of-the-gatekeeper/ The Man Band

Image by jovike via Flickr

Die gute Tat der Piraten (German) is an article talking about how the relationship artist – record label is changing. The Big 4 labels are moving away from finding and publishing new artists (and risking their investments if an artist isn’t as good as hoped, and doesn’t produce a steady revenue stream), while new artists are using the internet to generate publicity for themselves and their music. And that this approach isn’t a guarantee to stardom for artists, either.

The services a record label traditionally provide aren’t needed anymore: recording, promotion, booking,

In short, the music industry is changing.

 

Something similar can be seen in print (and a bit in TV news). More and more, especially younger, people are using the internet as their (primary) source of information.

 

Both industries, news and entertainment, are gatekeepers. And their role is diminishing. This isn’t bad or good. It is a result that formerly expensive activities (like producing a song, or publishing news) has become

cheap. Nowadays, you can get blogging in a minute, can buy music online (iTunes, Amazon MP3, and that’s just the big ones!), or can use Twitter to get news. Two examples: The Iranian election, or the Chengdu earthquake.

And the gatekeeper of the gatekeepers, the wire services, will fall victim to this, too. AP is already feeling the pain.

On the other hand, this shifts a burden that the gatekeeper had onto our, the consumer’s, shoulder: filtering the good from the bad.

After all, Britney Spears isn’t dead.

 

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]]> http://blog.thimian.com/2009/07/27/the-internet-the-end-of-the-gatekeeper/feed/ 0 Yes, you can. http://blog.thimian.com/2009/07/25/yes-you-can/ http://blog.thimian.com/2009/07/25/yes-you-can/#comments Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:41:28 +0000 Phill http://blog.thimian.com/2009/07/25/yes-you-can/  

We have laws, we have a discipline, we have a doctrine of the faith," the [Vatican] official says. "This is not just theory. And you can’t start backpedaling [sic] just because the real-life situation carries a certain human weight."

A Sequel to the Case of the Pregnant Nine-Year Old – Yahoo! News

And this is why: Agape. The unselfish love that we mortal men shall aim for, to love how God loves us: With no conditions attached. That, dear bishops, is part of the doctrine of faith, too. I checked the Catechism.

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