It's more complicated than just one single day of infamy, but when I signed on today, the first thing I clicked was a link from Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds to an ABC update on the story about Israel's strike at what's reported to have been a nuclear site within Syria. The ABC site, which to be fair, looks to be going through something of an update, wouldn't open. I managed to get the bulk of it from Yourish.com and it was almost a half-hour before the ABC link didn't crash.
Having been fortunate enough to have enjoyed some number of links from Glenn over my 3 plus years of blogging, I can say for a fact that he is driving more traffic than ever over that period of time. Certainly ABC will adjust and this may well have just been a single glitch, but in behind the scenes conversations with some bloggers and also some inside political hands, it's increasingly obvious how much of old media and, more importantly to me, anyway, old political institutions, particularly Republican ones, not only aren't keeping up with new media, I think many of them aren't even close to starting to really figure it out.
I'm reminded of the old tech argument about revolution versus evolution. Some people see every new technological advance as the current revolution. Many older hands see such things as simply another step in an on going evolution in technology. I tend to take the latter view and am optimistic the Right will eventually not only catch up, but provide even newer innovations when it comes to new media.
Anyway, while clicking one Insta-link to ABC on a Saturday morning may be nothing, let alone a day of infamy, it served as a reminder of how quickly new media is progressing and how difficult old media and old institutions are finding it to adjust.
In a purely political context, I wish that were more true of Liberals with everything they have going for them new media-wise today (Think Progress, Media Matters, DailyKos, etc) and less true of Republicans with decades-old infrastructure and publications barely beginning to come to understand how to win in a new media world. That, more than anything, could help to contribute to what some are suggesting will be a Republican electoral massacre in 2008. But only time and the on going evolution of politics and media will eventually tell.
Seriously? Their server crashed and mine didn't? I'm just on a simple little hosting service called BlueHost.
Can't have been the Instalink. It had to have been a coincidence. Wouldn't you think?
Posted by: Meryl Yourish | Saturday, October 06, 2007 at 03:45 PM
I got to the link with no problem about 12:30PM Mountain Time. That's right, flyover country and proud of it.
Posted by: Steve-o | Saturday, October 06, 2007 at 05:33 PM
Dan
The 08 election will be decided by what happens in Iraq. The news from Iraq is getting better by the day. By this time next year Harry Reid will be declaring the elction lost. And for once he'll be right. Ms Suspending Disbelief is in for a rough ride and hack leftie bloggers aren't going to save her. They'll be going down with her. SurgeOn.
Posted by: Terry Gain | Saturday, October 06, 2007 at 05:43 PM
"By this time next year Harry Reid will be declaring the elction lost."
No, they'll be touting that there was a unanimous vote among democrats present to vote to confirm Petraeus for the job. They'll rely on the public's notoriously short memory.
Posted by: Purple Avenger | Sunday, October 07, 2007 at 12:11 AM
"Wouldn't you think?"
Most likely, or the website chnages. But that and some email conversations caused me to think about the general topic.
Posted by: Dan Riehl | Sunday, October 07, 2007 at 07:16 AM