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THE COMING WAVE

2006

While researching the New Media, I became fascinated with the development of the “Flu Blog” [Any internet web site dedicated to monitoring outbreaks of infectious disease]. It seemed to represent – not only the direction – but the form and structure of the changing media in the Internet Age.

My original thesis was to write a series of articles detailing, as thoroughly as possible, the creation of the “Flu Blog” – from inception to mainstream assimilation.

However, as often happens in war and creativity, events overtook the plan.

My derailment occurred in the following manner:

By December of 2006 I had researched, compiled and databased every conceivable factoid relating to the early years of flu blogging. I felt ready to publish my first article and on the second day of 2007 I started posting on various web sites.

I was very pleased with the finished product believing that both technically and factually I had established the main point of my thesis – control of the media was being altered forever and that the evolution was being driven from the bottom up.

Here is that article:

2007

EXPLORING THE NEW MEDIA'S EVOLUTIONARY PATH
-THE BIRTH OF THE FLU BLOG-

Every beginning is a consequence - every beginning ends some thing
(Paul Valery)

In February of 2003 newspapers, cable news and radio were the interface between the American public and breaking news. It had long been such.

No one set out to destroy the relevancy of these institutions.

Like so much change it just happened. Passion and need mixed with a witches blend of electronic gadgetry created a new paradigm. A paradigm where power was snatched from the media elite and taken by the citizenry - and no one has ever looked back.

Until now.

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(2007 Article Continued)

THE OLD PARADIGM

As the concept of the "Discussion Forum" caught on across the growing Internet, a couple of standard formulas became the norm.

The first was a single poster copying and pasting a news article from the Main Stream Media and then adding his/her comments. This early Blog form still exists today.

The second formula developed largely during the "Clinton Scandals".

Liberals and conservatives separated and started their own discussion forums where they would post an article from the Drudge Report or the New York Times and then proceed to beat it to death with everyone making comments.

There were a few science centered Blogs, but they also followed these same two formats. And they were out in the periphery - with few members and very few visitors.

No it was the mega sites where the action was - a huge group of diverse members, lots of visitor traffic and a stable infrastructure.

The elements were now all in place for the perfect storm.

THE TRANSFORMATION

This is the way the world ends Not with a bang, but a whimper

-T. S. Eliot-

It was the Ides of March, late in the night - on the hottest conservative forum on the Internet - that she appeared.

In an obscure section of that web site she posted a cryptically titled thread, made a comment about Ebola, a comment about God and then posted an advisory about a "worldwide health threat."

In a section that had seen only seven threads in the past seven days, she wove a strange, exotic and haunting thread for two days.

Then on the 17th of March she posted the first of 20 highly technical medical threads about the SARS outbreak - and over the next eleven days guided both lay and professionals, transformed the web site, crushed the paradigm and changed the way we interface with breaking news forever.

Oh, and there is that strange aspect of her name.

Every literate person on the Web knew and understood, not only what it meant, but the endless nuances that lay associated with that name, in this context.

She signed on as Mother Abigail.