Making like it's 1999
Jimmy Leach, editorial director "for digital" at The Independent newspaper, announced to the world that "The Independent starts blogging". The year was 1999? No. It was 2008. Tuesday, 25 November 2008 at 10:02 am, actually. But making like it was 1999, Jimmy issued this radical statement:
"Letting all and sundry blog under our flag and letting them speak about what they want might be something we regret on occasion — but we trust you. You're Independent readers after all, you'll want to debate, not start a fight, and, as the whole thing beds in, we'll be bringing the user content closer and closer to the centre of the site."
Isn't "Letting all and sundry blog under our flag and letting them speak about what they want..." somewhat late for the party? It's quite possible that "all and sundry" are already blogging under the WordPress or MySpace flags these days. By the way, the 1999 reference above is to the fact that The Independent is using the LiveJournal blogging platform for sundry 'n all and LiveJournal was created by Brad Fitzpatrick in 1999! Following many changes in ownership, it now belongs to SUP, a Russian media company. Coincidentally, one week before The Independent started blogging with LiveJournal, the platform launched a number of India focused communities, including India Movies, India Sport and India Travels. No mention of any recent unpleasantness to be seen there so far, though.
