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TIM FAULKNER — Dave Winer, web technology pioneer and prognosticator, is sharing his vision of Web 3.0, the buzzword that was cliché before it was even coined. Unfortunately but perhaps unsurprisingly, his prediction, or rather his aspiration, has little to do with the evolution of web applications or modes of expression; instead it amounts to a detente to the self-made feud between professional journalists and the blogosphere.

Imho, the next step after that, I hope, is the professional media fully embracing the new media, no longer see it as a threat to their continued employment. See amateur public writing, the former audience who is no longer silent, as sources who can get attention for their ideas without going through an intermediary.

While there is real disdain from a vocal minority from each camp towards the other, there is already cross-pollination and blending between the professional and amateur, and this "embracing" continues to grow. Online newspapers are embracing comments, using blogs as sources, recruiting blogger talent. Blogs have developed sources, formed larger networks with paid writers and higher standards. Moreover, all media has always formed a spectrum of the amateur to the professional; homogenization occurs in the middle but isn't desirable for an entire community of creators.

Of course, there is a real debate about the standards and methods of creating content, real threats to old media, and real concerns with the blogosphere. However, misapplying trite valleyspeak to that debate does nothing to advance the old media's appreciation of the new. It merely adds to the disdain... even from the blog side of the spectrum.