Chris Anderson - Designing Media

Chris Anderson has had a rare seat at the forefront of the redesigning of Media as we know it. Quite possibly, there was no better seat for this than being at the head of Wired Magazine during the hayday of the Internet boom in the late 90's and early 2000's.

Anderson has seen the way that media has changed, from a sort of "big boys" club, where only those "in the know" are allowed to do something in a certain field. He mentions that, before today, if you wanted to produce and broadcast something, you needed to be in the television industry. But today, anyone can get a cheap camera, cheap editing software, and upload anything and everything they create to YouTube. And this is seen in all aspects, where people write, sing, create, and just simply become apart of any medium they wish, with very little bar of entry to do so. Media used to be a way for those in power to communicate. Media has now become just another way for everyone to communicate.

Not only has the way people do this changed, but also the why. Beforehand, the predominant reason could've been stated as money. Media was big, fast moving, fun, and paid well. Everyone wanted in, and only a few could get in. But, as time went on, those in the spotlight seemed to be doing it for a different reason. Not so much for cash, but for the explicit reason of being in the spotlight. People all over the world would worship these people. And like before with the issue of money, people wanted in. They wanted to be seen for no other reason than to be seen.

People all over the internet now, offer their services for free, just to be apart of something bigger. Novelists write books, programmers design software, musicians make music, artists make art, and distribute them freely over the Net for anyone to see.

From Chris Anderson's eyes, the way media works is changing drastically. In some ways for the worse, but ultimately, for the better.