The Static Web vs the Live Web
Day One – Syndicate conference
Doc Searls started the conference off with flashbacks to 1999 and remembering how Dave Winer got him started blogging with the “Edit this page” function – a radical idea in web content.
He pointed out that we refer to the static web in terms of real estate – we build, we have architecture. Bur when Dave Winer took Rich Site Summary and made it into Really Simple Syndication he changed the static web forever. Now we have the Live Web.
Search engines like Google and Yahoo search the static web. The new live web search tools like Pub Sub, Technorati and others are searching the Live Web – and they have to use different rules.
Now anyone can write and syndicate. The Live Web has created a reversal of power. Your audience is no longer just receiving your communication. They are answering back – and they are starting conversations.
The Live Web has also reversed the consumer/producer role in terms of content. We are not longer consumers – we are producers. (Keynes would turn in his grave at the thought!) We write, we post, we syndicate.
Markets have indeed become conversations, as Doc said back in 1999 in the Cluetrain Manifesto. The train is going down the track at a fast clip. If you are not engaging in the conversation yet, the sand in your mouth must be getting very uncomfortable.
And when your head is in the sand, your rear end is hanging out for all to see and you might just feel the force of the online conversations, whether you choose to acknowledge them or not.
