It's lonelygirl15's world, isn't it?

It's lonelygirl15's world, isn't it? Maybe not yet (at least for me)

After spending a day at the New Media and Podcast Expo, I am thinking that the 'next Web' is all about micro-content.
Well, that and oddly-colored hair if the attendees are actually influential.

Viral video presenters on a panel with me, talked about 'shows' with lengths of 60 seconds to 5 minutes long each.
Oh, and of course, sex sells (some things don't change). Everyone just wants their '15 minutes' although now I think it's more like 15 seconds, their 'quarter Life', or just whatever...

Another trend seems to be virtual lives - including participation in the "lives" of characters in microshows and beyond -
that is, thier 'character's' blogs, social network sites, even 'real life' events, etc...all of which are, of course, fake.
Kind of a Second Life on steroids, I guess. It seems also to be all about emotion (especially spectacle - even better if it is fake) - divorced from thought. The line 'spectacle first, story second'  was kind of a mantra.

This attention frenzy is a bit much for me. My response is to feel like reading a book, slowly and for a good long time.
Fortunately, I've got one that interests me particularly now - linguistics and semantics - now there's a topic that I
enjoy giving some dedicated attention to. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to unplug for awhile...