Slow learners

I wasn't around last week for the big push on Hugh Hewitt's new book on blogging. I'm not sure that it'll tell me much that I don't already know. He got a nice review from Instapundit, although it's sort of like preaching to the choir to post a review on a blog.

Like Hugh's last book, this one should be required reading for the people who won't like it. The MSM are reacting like candlemakers to electricity, which is so predictable they should be embarrassed, and being amply covered by the blogosphere. I'm sure there are plenty of people who aren't plugged in, and it's true that newspapers have survived competition from television, but blogging and internet news sites are a far bigger threat to the news media establishment.

This isn't all that new a shift. First, talk radio revealed that there is a huge untapped market in this country for conservative-slanted news and commentary. Then the Fox News Channel appeared and ate CNN's lunch. Still, it wasn't until 2004 that they began to realize that the sand was slipping under their feet. These people are not only arrogant, but they're not too bright if it took them so long to figure it out. Papers like the LA Times seem to be doing all they can to drive away potential readers with their online registration asking for your home phone, social security number, photo, birth certificate, driver's license and thumbprint, and then they don't remember you. This is a perfect example of the phenomenon of disruptive technology. It starts out appealing to low end markets then displaces the old ones which which have become dependent on profit margins that the new tech doesn't need.

This is going to be interesting.