April 12, 2004

owning the means of conversation

3 Comments

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So the BBC, thin­king the inter­net terribly empo­we­ring yak yak yak, decide to emu­late the blo­gosphere them­sel­ves. Something that acted like the blo­gosphere– a mini blo­gosphere, as it were… all hap­pe­ning on its own ser­ver, within its own spe­ci­fied inter­face, with all that won­der­fully reas­su­ring Beeb bran­ding… Ahhhhhhhh.
They come up with “ican”. As in “I can”, ged­dit? The idea is you go to THEIR SITE and “empo­wer” your­self by inte­rac­ting on THEIR TERMS on THEIR SERVER with other like-minded “empo­we­red citi­zens” yak yak yak.
Well, thanks for telling me that “I can”, you stu­pid quango*. Like I nee­ded your per­mis­sion. (*Quasi-Autonomous Non-Government Orga­ni­sa­tion, in case you were won­de­ring).
But that atti­tude is typi­cal of the BBC, or any big media com­pany…
“Come to OUR site and use OUR tech­no­logy on OUR ser­ver and use OUR inter­face based on OUR agenda… so when it takes off the and the media gets a hold of the story they’ll write about OUR site and OUR tech­no­logy and OUR agenda…”
i.e. “WE HAVE TO OWN THE MEANS OF CONVERSATION.”
It’s not just they think an orches­tra needs a good con­duc­tor. They assume they have a God-given right to own the musi­cal ins­tru­ments as well.
“Owning the means of con­ver­sa­tion.” Remem­ber that term. It’s a good one.

3 Responses to “owning the means of conversation”

  1. pete says:
    April 13, 2004 at 5:04 pm

    Apo­lo­gies for the pedantry, Hugh, but a quango is a quasi auto­no­mous NON-governmental organisation.

  2. hugh says:
    April 13, 2004 at 5:14 pm

    thanks. i don’t mind the occa­sio­nal spot check ;-)

  3. pete says:
    April 13, 2004 at 5:34 pm

    You also spelt auto­no­mous with a ‘y’.