2006: 'Tsunami of self-expression'

That's from Jon Pareles of the New York Times. He adds: "Simply unleashing it could be the easy part. Now we have to figure out what to do with it," and I think he's right. Individual media producers (your kids and mine) have to figure it out, as do professional artists, lawyers, parents, media companies, educators, judges. "The music business in particular is going to have to remake itself with lower and more sustainable expectations, along the lines of how independent labels already work. But let the business take care of itself; it’s the culture that matters." And Jon goes on to describe the fragmentation, or segmentation, of the music scene, as well as the "tabulation" – the way "sites featuring user-generated content prominently display their own most-viewed and most-played lists" or sites like fluxblog.org and obscuresound.com "that gather hard-to-find songs for listeners to download" - the now slower (but maybe more authentic?) ways we get to the "top of the charts." But that's the question – is the grassroots way a better way to get to good art than huge marketing dollars on the record companies' part? Maybe. Check out The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki. And stay tuned to the user-driven Internet – I'll be watching right along with you. ;-) [Thanks to Michael Geist of BNA Internet Law for pointing Jon's article out.]