Rav Casley Gera’s Blog

In our double-speed age, when the most staid, pinstriped executive salivates over the latest iPod, hot trends shoot all the way up from the underground to the mainstream with dazzling speed. YouTube was only founded in early 2005, but by late 2006 it had not only made its founders multimillionaires, but had put a new buzzword - “web 2.o” - onto the front pages of the developed world’s traditional media. By now, you probably know what it means - an internet created, shaped and filled by us, the user. In a genuine stroke of genius, the folks at Time magazine - at its best, the perfect yardstick of the most forward-thinking end of the American mainstream - declared its Man Or Woman of the Year for 2006 to be “you” - or rather, us. [Read more →]

In a faraway domain, a fragile democracy is fighting for survival. Everyday we watch on our screens it struggles to maintain order amongst chaos and defend its day-to-day operations against dissent and malicious attacks. What? No, not Iraq! I’m talking about Wikipedia.

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Does the rise of blogging and the decline of newspapers mean that Thomas Wolfe's "new journalism," originally expected to displace the novel, will soon be the only journalism left?

October 1, 2006 in Asides, Rav Idly Wonders | 0 comments

So I got into a couple of arguments over Guardian leaders, over, of all things, the BBC and (less of a shock) international development policy.

I still think it’s very wierd that the world’s second-most popular online newspaper lets any user place unmoderated comments straight on the webpage of its leader articles, but it’s kind of fun, too…