Exponential growth threatens the media, says Henry. (Here’s the written version of his presentation.) The New York Times has 11M unique visitors a month, more than the 10.5M readers of the print version; they get 350M page views per month. Instapundit Glenn Reynolds does 1% of the page impressions of the NYT. This is a big universe. Advertisements get lost in the ever-expanding space of the Net.

We need new way of organizing media, he says. How? First, there’s passion. Blogs generate passion. Look at Slashdot. But why? Because blogs are “proxy personalities.” And they become little clubs with partisan members.

Second, there’s what Henry calls “Hubness,” in part to play on “hipness.” “I believe that blogs, connecting broad audiences of individuals who are themselves pivotal communicators in their respective online and offline communities, are the hubs of the new information age.” [From the written version.] The “coordination effect” is the need for people to know what other people are doing in order to decide what they ought to do. E.g., people don’t like eating in an empty restaurant. Advertisers will tap into groups of bloggers who can move in a direction together. (He recommends a book by Michael Suk-Young Chwe. which I believe is Rational Ritual.)

[Oooh, he said the words “ad” and “blogs” in the same sentence! :) Excellent talk. Someday advertisers will indeed figure out how to use the Internet and it’s good to hear studied reflection on the issue.]

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