Epic 2010

This time I had a plan to write about something else than Google. I thought I explored its potential impact for a while. But just as I was starting to make up the title for today's entry, my good friend Glenn reminded me of the Epic 2014 story. Yes, I watched this movie before. But it was fairly long ago, at least before I got involved (both financially and emotionally) with Google. So I tuned in to the Epic 2014 home page and watched it again. What strikes me, is how close the movie authors are in their predictions to my own thoughts, on how the information flow chain will evolve (or evolves, should I say). The only difference is timing. Since I am sure 2014 will happen before 2010. Actually I can feel the story is happening now, with the headworx blog being one of the participants and contributors to the changes.
Events happen around the globe. Life, science, politics, technology, literature, music... How do we learn about them today? We read newspapers, watch television, listen to radio stations. Millions of journalists collect the information and submit to the media distribution channels (news agencies, newspaper publishers, TV broadcasters) that in turn deliver the information to us. We also use the Internet to actively search and find relevant information. Most of the time we turn to the same distribution channels, or more precisely - their online presence hubs. So we go to CNN.COM, FOX.COM, BBC.COM, NYTimes.COM and others. Is there a difference? Not that much, really. We can get some information earlier than its printed or aired version, but the source is the same - people who work there by profession, collecting information at its source and delivering it to us.
But this is going to change. Internet technologies remove unnecessary rings in many chains. We get more direct access to sources. As you have probably watched Epic 2014 already, you know what I mean. The sources of information already are on the Net. Most of them blogs. Millions of them. People passionately writing about the events they witnessed, the ideas they created, the observations they have. On the other side there are billions of people reading (or watching in case of video blogs). They need to be connected. And here comes again the need for a profile / pattern matching engine. Readers are profiled by what they read. And based on the profiles, a clever computer algorithm is able to choose the content they will like to read. This is the same algorithm that will be your "channel selector" in Life After Television. It is making your news and entertainment custom cut and personal.
We know Google has been working on this for a long time. At least since the inception of Google News service, that is put together entirely by computers. At the moment Google News takes its input from professional sources, but soon it will start taking more and more from personal blogs. Why? Trust me. I know, because I have been through this already. I stopped watching TV and reading newspapers a couple of years ago. Then I turned to the on-line services like Google News, and started visiting some other sites like CNN or BBC. But recently almost all the newsfeeds I have, come from blogs over RSS feeds that aggregate in my personalized Google Reader. Directly from the sources. No delays, no distortions. No middle-man in between. I love this. And you will too, soon. Kurzweil's law of accelerating progress guarantees 2014 will happen before 2010.
Ah, I would forgot the investors corner... Newspapers and TV are going away. Where do you think the 600 billion $ advertising business will go to? OK... now you know why Google is still cheap :)