08/12/2005 09:44:00 PM 
(1) 
(1) However, perhaps the new expert is not a single entity, but the amalgamation of users.
Last FM has a unique take on the idea of social networking through music. This is a service where it takes your play list information and compares it other users and from this makes recommendations of music that you might like. It enables you to expand your musical horizons with the help of a massive network of fellow users. Amazon does the same thing when you buy a CD.
These are just examples of the amateur revolution that is slowly undermining the top down control of mass media experts. In a massively commercial world where the payola still exists, do you trust the masses of people like you or what MTV and your local radio station tells you?
As mass media becomes less trusted and consequently less authoritative, it cedes the high ground and becomes something else all together; we see it today with news becoming "newstainment." In the new void, consumers now have to decide for themselves what they choose to believe, relying more on a diversity of sources, word of mouth and edited mass created media.
Edited mass created media provides a view based on the aggregate of all conversations. If you want news- you go to Google news- again, created by an algorithm of news sources, that's soon likely to include blogs.
It can even extend beyond media, to a perspective on your own creativity.
Just a few months ago, if you wanted an opinion on a photograph you had taken, you asked some friends or someone who you thought was a good photographer. If you were lucky, they might be honest and tell you what they thought. Now, Flickr has written for algorithm for "interesting photos", so the aggregate data from thousands can tell you.
In the future, algorithms will play an increasing role as experts helping us see clearly through the masses of conversation and data.
It only leaves one question, who is writing the algorithms?
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great post. <br>i'd like to think that you're original thought on the role of music experts to help guide listening choices might still be useful though. <br> <br>aggregating information, analyzing usage patterns, or monitoring traffic stats should (hopefully) not become confused with inspiration and creativity, or a human insight. algorithms can only go so far in deriving certain kinds of wisdom, but how far can they, or will they, go creatively? can an algorithm produce a creative recommendation or insight? <br> <br> <br> <br> <br>