Basically, ever since the printing press, technology has allowed mass production and therefore commodification of people’s thoughts for knowledge or entertainment - essentially creating the “media” we know today. However, the tools of this production have been kept in the hands of few, or corporations, as it’s always been cost prohibitive to scale up to mass entertainment levels. A recording artist was forced to deal with the record labels since they had access to all the record stores and the recording studios.

Now this is obviously changing. And it’s affecting music, movies, television, video, and obviously print, too.

I’d go so far as to say while web 2.0 has so far been about websites springing up that allow people to share content (social news, YouTube), web 3.0 is going to allow the average folks to build social, dynamic websites themselves (Pipes, Ning), or even applications. Wouldn’t it be awesome if anybody could be a programmer?

Great post. There are definitely major changes in store. One of the biggest coming changes is the importantce of content creators learnign to be distributers, too. Everyone has distribution available to them — all they need is a web site — and if they don’t advantage of it, they will get lost in the flood. I’m expecting a lot of niche distributors in the coming years, instead of massive broadcasters. Big business will no longer just be big business — but lots of little businesses (in the long-tail spirit).

It’s a pretty exciting time.

- Maureen

2. We’re not damaging newspapers much, that’s mostly mythology. Note the comments our CEO, Jim Buckmaster, just made in Edinburgh, which have been circulating bloggily.

Craig
craig@craigslist.org