Extremism is dead

Ray Ozzie's take on Steve Gillmor's Notes is Dead :

PUBLISHING IS DEAD. Gone, a relic of the past, dead as a doornail, breathless, buried. According to police reports, one-way publishing was killed off by a technology - Weblogs - that have reshaped journalism forever. According to observers, there was formerly but a single effective way to get messages out to an audience - through major mass-market publications that possessed exclusive control of the final form of those messages. "Add Weblogs to that mix", one highly-respected and influential journalist recently wrote, and an entire industry's "world view was shaken". Indeed. [ Ray Ozzie's weblog ]

Touché!

Sam Ruby once said:

I continue to strive to find the middle ground between the Web Services and REST advocates, running the risk of alienating both camps. Meanwhile, the ever moderate Jon Udell seems always be able to find the middle ground between my middle ground and the position that I am trying to moderate. How does he do that? [ Sam Ruby ]

I don't know exactly when it happened, but at some point I became an extreme anti-extremist. Or maybe the way to say it is that I became hyper-empathic: I couldn't avoid seeing issues from every point of view.

At various times, Notes and Unix and Java -- and publishing! -- are declared to be dead. I have explored all sides of all of these debates, and continue to do so.

What mainly fascinates me about this moment in history is the role of the blog. We've turned a corner, I think, in terms of pluralism. Authentic voices on all sides of all debates are heard directly. The world is profoundly more transparent. Given the irreducible and growing complexity of everything, this is a necessary and wonderful thing. I feel lucky to be a part of it!

Former URL: http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2002/08/28.html#a389