"Our social tools remove older obstacles to public expression, and thus remove the bottlenecks that characterized mass media. The result is the mass amateurization of efforts previously reserved for media professionals." Clay Shirky

"When we call something intuitive, we often mean familiar." Esther Dyson

"Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about." Cory Doctorow

Today's image: sheet music by katie paige. Great shot. Thanks for sharing.

Enjoying the new Clay Shirky book Here Comes Everybody. Get yours. Here's another taste...

"The media landscape is transformed, because personal communication and publishing, previously separate functions, now shade into one another. One result is to break the older pattern of professional filtering of the good from the mediocre before publication; now such filtering is increasingly social, and it happens after the fact."

"Our social tools are not an improvement to modern society; they are a challenge to it. New technology makes new things possible: put another way, when new technology appears, previously impossible things start occurring. If enough of those impossible things are important and happen in a bundle, quickly, the change becomes a revolution."

"We are plainly witnessing a restructuring of the media businesses, but their suffering isn't unique, it's prophetic. All businesses are media businesses, because whatever else they do, all businesses rely on the managing of information for two audiences - employees and the world. The increase in the power of both individuals and groups, outside traditional organizational structures, is unprecedented. Many institutions we rely on today will not survive this change without significant alteration, and the more an institution or industry relies on information as its core product, the greater and more complete the change will be. The linking of symmetrical participation and amateur production makes this period of change remarkable. Symmetrical participation means that once people have the capacity to receive information, they have the capacity to send it as well. Owning a television does not give you the ability to make TV shows, but owning a computer means that you can create as well as receive many kinds of content, from the written word through sound and images. Amateur production, the result of all this new capability, means that the category of 'consumer' is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity."

Chapter 4. Publish, Then Filter. Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. Highly recommended. Amazon info here.

Grapes: Trapiche Oak Cask. Cabernet Sauvignon 2005. Mendoza. A good red from Argentina; product from the foothills of the Andes. Fine value at under $10.