Chill, blogophiles; you're not the first to do what you're doing: Jeez. Take a pill, all you blogomaniacs. Blogs are fun. Blogs add a fascinating new element to public discourse. But blogs are another turn of history's wheel, not a radical departure.
"There has been a long drift away from mass media to more specialized media," says Phil Meyer, a University of North Carolina journalism professor and author of The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age. "The bloggers are the latest manifestation - more messages to smaller numbers of people." [...]
Blogs will push media to change. At some point, some blogs will gain real influence and make money, and they will get bought by big media companies. That's how it often works.
One thing, though: Despite the claims of consumer groups, major media can't become all-powerful, however much they consolidate. The falling cost of information will create new kinds of competitors and voices, much as it created bloggers and pamphleteers.
"That traditional media are shrinking down to a few dominant players actually reinforces this point," says Larry Downes, author of The Strategy Machine. "When old methods of communication mature, it's natural for them to merge. Diversity in media will win out, thanks to faster, cheaper and smaller computing power."
