By You, for You: The New Web

Regarding the wave of peer-to-peer and self-publishing environments sweeping the web, The New York Times' John Markoff says,

"Inexpensive to create and worldwide in reach, the new Internet services are having an impact far beyond... file sharing... Indeed, the abundance of user-generated content - which includes... citizen journalism sites - is reshaping the debate over file sharing. Many Internet industry executives think it poses a new kind of threat to Hollywood, the recording industry and other purveyors of proprietary content: not piracy of their work, but a compelling alternative... The new services offer a bottom-up creative process that is shifting the flow of information away from a one-way broadcast or publishing model..."

Of course we e-Margonauts get pretty excited about this stuff, the mainstream media finally beginning to recognize that real people want to share with other real people, that the information we seek is personal, authentic, individualized. The Margaux Project is a collaborative effort to do just this, to connect real people together without a referee, to transmit relavent, helpful content from one traveler to another, without the homogenizing, ersatzification of the big publishing houses. Read Markoff's article, Web Content by and for the Masses. He goes on to say:

"Many Internet developers think that the Internet's new phase will shift power away from old-line media and software companies while rapidly bringing about an age of computerized "augmentation" by blending the skills of tens of thousands of individuals."

Sounds good! Hail all individuals...