nadav points at What Was Once A Village Paved In Gold Is Now A Metropolis With Rat-infested Ghettos which is interesting to me both as a history of a company’s evolution, but also as a consequence of what happens on a site where you let your customers review products: at some point the product they review will be you.
It also makes me realize that I’m getting most of my news through a human filter (except, of course the holy two hours on sunday morning with the newspaper and iht) and I’m happy about it. I’ve long doubted the existence of “journalist objectivity” and by receiving all my news through blogs and the like, every single piece of news is so very clearly slanted, I feel free– no, obligated– to form my own opinions on the matter. I question what I see, I have to think, I search for other opinions… the “untrustworthy narrator” makes reading an interactive rather than a passive activity.
feel free to disagree.
a short note on the exception: I have loved the International Herald Tribune for years, and have always wished I could get it in America (I buy it when I’m traveling). Their website is all the things the paper is: succinct news with a world view presented elegantly.