stephen collins

It’s a lame excuse to link to Bill Wyman’s old song, but I am actually very happy to have been translated into French and quoted in Le Monde.

In his column Transnets, Francis Pisani’s article Blogalaxie/4: “futur des médias” et “rumeurs” quotes my rant about journalism from last week.

Ils ont parlé de la “tension artificielle” blogueurs-journalistes qui, selon Stephen Collins occupe trop de place (voir ce qu’en ont écrit Narvic et Éliane Fiolet sur Transnets).

J’ai bien aimé cette phrase du blogueur australien Stilgherrian: “Ce qui est fatiguant dans cette fausse dichotomie c’est qu’elle compare les idéaux les plus élevés du journalisme et le degré le plus bas du blogging personnel.”

Et ce petit avis aux journalistes traditionnels: “La forme de votre métier et la forme de vos articles était déterminée par la technologie pour les distribuer.” Aujourd’hui “nous avons tous des claviers, nous avons tous des téléphones mobiles avec des caméras ou nous les aurons bientôt. Nous avons tous des outils de publication et de distribution” comme WordPress ou YouTube entre autres.

I sound much more intelligent in French… and I do like the word “blogalaxie” rather than “blogosphere”. Still, I reckon “blogueur” and “blogueuse” sound more like something you’d pump out of an asthmatic duck.

Statistics on how businesses use the Internet demonstrate how the Web 2.0 digerati are rocketing so far ahead of reality into their self-obsessed digital fantasy-land that they might as well be on Mars.

ABS figures show that fewer than a third of Australian businesses have a “web presence”.

This week the redoubtable Laurel Papworth complained about that:

Well, that sucks… Not much hope for Web 2.0 if 70% of us can’t get our heads around Web 1.0, is there?

Stephen Collins, who I’ve read for a while and chatted with recently, agrees.

I am disappointed. It indicates just how far behind the 8-ball most business in Australia is…

Laurel associates this lack of penetration with the widespread lack of understanding of the power of the Web, and specifically Web 2.0 technologies, amongst Australian business. I’d have to say I agree.

Really? Disappointed? I see steady growth in those “web presence” figures. I’ll show you in a moment. First, though, I need to tell you why I reckon you’re wrong.

“Disappointment” shows a misunderstanding of what constitutes “business”, even in the 21st Century. And there’s still a lot of work to help businesses lay the digital foundations before we start building so many crystal castles.

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