I sit in the main mess-hall of the GroupT college listening to some Norah Jones on my Ipod. Attention zeroed in on the screen of my macbook I hardly notice the not that bad looking girl that sits alone on the table next to me. Across the room a group of people is chattering away .. the sound of their voices canceled out byt the very effecient noiseblocking capabilities from my in-ear headphones. As the whole world interacts with eachother I Twitter a random thought towards the web 2.0 community that follows my tweets. A man sitting at the window taps his foot to the music playing on the radio. I don’t hear it and don’t even care. Surrounded by people and impressions it just takes an internet connection to completely take me away from this place. A small smile flutters across my face as my Australian friend Dave and Tim send me a horrible voicemail over Skype where they chat about bodily functions in a way my stumic turns. Its just a typical example on how my integration with the web seeps into every pore of my everyday life.
It has its pro’s sure. But also its cons. Take the way I handle media for example. I’ve been the proud owner of an MP3 player of over 10 years now. From the earlyest RIO player ( with a whopping 32 megs of ram) to my current Ipod. But even before that my trusty sony walkman was never far away from my side. Whenever I had the chance to grab my headset and zone out of the world.. I would take it. But back then things where different from now. For the last 2 years I have been engulfed in this new media world. Listening to podcasts, Becoming a member of the whole Web 2.0 community and of course discovering more and more sources of media and information.
Somewhere along the way I have strayed from the path called ‘mainstream" and setteled into my own little world of interest. Into this little niche of early adopters and the things they crave. I have waded deep into the pool of peer media and have gotten accustomed to talking to people all over the world while ignoring the stranger sitting along side of me.
All fine and dandy you might think… but on the other hand, it all has its downsides too. Take "classic media" for example. With the up-rise of podcasting I have tuned out of "Normal Radio" long ago. Escalating from a point where I could not care less what was on the radio, to the point that I cant even get myself to listen to an hour of radio in the car. Its not as much the content that I don’t like (Although there IS a lot of crap on there.) Its also the format. I cant stand having to listen to commercials without being able to skip through them, I hate the fact that I have to wait until that stupid song is missing before the news starts and so on. Add to that that I have been so spoiled in getting all this nice "niche-content", tailored to my exact interests on my Ipod and you have a recipe for classic-radio-drama.
It however does get worse. With the uprising of video podcasts I have subscribed to quite a few. The downside is , I don’t have the chance to watch them at work or in the car. So whenever I am couched out in front of the TV with my lovely wife .. I get a little frustrated. The next re-run of the Simpsons starts to agitate me, The fact that the good shows ( For example LOST) are on so very very late. The dumb dribble that has to masquerade as a talk-show starts to nag in my ears. "Yet another reality show" is starting to get on my nerves. The nagging thought that I could build my entire TV night from recorded material ( That I recorded with my EyeTv), Downloaded podcasts and purchased DVD’s is becoming more and more predominant as I sit in front of the tube. If I could be so bold and predict that little 30-something me is getting this pissed of with the way mainstream media present their content, I can only fear what the next generation is going to be like. I was born with the zapper in my hands, had some 50 channels to choose from for the better part of my life and have managed to skip almost 40 percent of the commercials that where intended for my viewing. So what is the next generation going to be like ? With the evolution of ‘The web 2.0’ I start to pose the question : When are we going to REALY see "Media 2.0" take shape.