November 18, 2004

The Future of Media "In the year 2014, The New York Times has gone offline. The Fourth Estate's fortunes have waned. What happened to the news? And what is Epic?" This is a fascinating flash movie from 10 years in the future describing the development of the history of media. Created by the bloggers at Snarkmarket.
posted by minuskelvin 20 years ago
  • Woctoredan bullshit.
  • Interesting, and well done. Thanks.
  • I liked it very much. But I don't see ever wanting anybody editing my info feed but myself, second to second, because my interests, level of vapidity, and appetite for information changes hourly. Which is why I like the damn net so much in the first place - otherwise I'd have a newspaper subscription. Marketing will never move at the speed of human thought.
  • i've been in journalism for, let's see, counting high-school newspaper... um... nearly 31 years now, and this debate has been going on SINCE THEN. the "death of newspapers." so who knows. but i'm not worried.
  • Will the Flash movie finish loading by 2013?
  • The future will in B+W static FOREVER.
  • Googlezon is the worst company name ever. Except for Newsbotster. They would make great Godzilla nemeses, though. I love this sort of blue sky futurism, even if it doesn't always make sense. I mean, if EPIC assimilates and summarizes news articles so well that it drives the newspapers offline and into bankruptcy, then it no longer has free news articles to assimilate and summarize. Not much a business model there. There will always be a market for insight and accuracy. Any news organization that consistently shows both will thrive.
  • The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.*
  • I like that nobody checks it for truth after 2010 or so. You'd never know what was actually happening anywhere. Canada could invade the US, or vice versa, and as long as you got to the bloggers before they uploaded no-one in the wider world would know. Better, you and a group of friends could horribly skew the news to your advantage. Chaos on a global scale.
  • el_hombre: seriously. Is it just us? Maybe it don't like my Mac? It still isn't loaded... :(
  • I missed this before. But I find the names get more unbelievable. Also, MS has already brought out their news filter: called MSNfilter. No money to mathowie.
  • I missed this before. But I find the names get more unbelievable. Also, MS has already brought out their news filter: called MSNfilter. No money to mathowie.