This article was taken from the July issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content bysubscribing online
In the next decade, what new media platform will most affect journalism and self-expression?
<p style="text-shadow: none;" class="MsoNormal">Arianna HuffingtonCofounder and editor-in chief of*The Huffington Post*"I think we will see an explosion of news sites engaging their communities in the editorial process. We’ll see a great expansion of the ways citizen journalists will help drive the news: recommending stories. Technology has enabled millions of consumers to shift their focus from passive observation to active participation."
<p style="text-shadow: none;" class="MsoNormal">Clay ShirkyAuthor, consultant and NYU adjunct professor"There won’t be a ten-year ‘Next Big Thing’. Here’s a slice of the last ten: WordPress, Wikipedia, Digg, Meetup, Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Foursquare. Twitter is the new headline news, QQ the new agora, ChatRoulette puts the ‘self’ in self-expression. Expect more of the same in the next ten."
<p style="text-shadow: none;" class="MsoNormal">June CohenCoproducer, TED Conference "There won’t be a single dominant platform, but rather many platforms that rise and fall. Overall, my money is on mobile: real-time and massively participatory media that will be primarily created and consumed via smartphones. Twitter is the first platform to truly harness this new ecosystem. But it won’t be the last."
<p style="text-shadow: none;" class="MsoNormal">Nick BiltonLead writer, New York TimesBits Blog"There’s currently a war taking place between big computing companies including Google, Apple and Microsoft; they are all competing to own the mobile platform. Self-expression and journalism will be born from the same mobile devices and the difference between the two types of content will continue to blur."
<p style="text-shadow: none;" class="MsoNormal">Helen WaltersEditor of design and innovation, Bloomberg*BusinessWeek*"Despite the fact that the internet has existed in some form for over 50 years, we’ve still only scratched the surface of what is possible. When journalists, writers and publishers look beyond previous (print-based) paradigms to harness the capabilities of online, we will see a truly radical reinvention of these disciplines."
Adam PenenbergJournalism professor at NYU "Journalists will create for the web’s two billion users and growing, then port it over to mobile platforms such as iPad, Android and whatever comes next. Video screens become cheap, disposable technology. The upshot: self-expression becomes ubiquitous with social-media functionality."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
