March 18, 2004

The Internet's Growing Influence

Today comes a few stories regarding the Internet and it's growing influence on the population.

According to a new survey, the online US population has topped 200 million.

"In just a handful of years, online access has managed to gain the type of traction that took other mediums decades to achieve," said Kenneth Cassar, director of strategic analysis at Nielsen/NetRatings.

Indeed it has.

Such a strong growth in a medium like this brings about other changes even more quickly. Case in point: News Media. The old guard of news media fears the power of millions of online "citizen reporters," and they are trying their best to discredit this new movement. They arrogantly believe that they are the only ones that have the right to speak to the masses. The truth is, there's a revolution taking place...it's online and they're missing the boat.

Bill Hobbs today writes about this very subject:

Note the implied arrogance that the news industry gets to have a say in whether citizens should be allowed to contribute to online journalism. News flash, guys: Citizens are already contributing to online journalism - and you don't get to decide if we can participate. Fact is, we may even decide to use our blogs and other online tools to force you to cover a story you ignored...

Read his excellent post here.

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