Sunday, September 27, 2009 by Val
“Users may be able to choose from millions of sites, but most go to only a few. This isn’t an accident or the result of savvy branding. It’s because Internet traffic follows a winner-take-all pattern that is much more ruthless than people realise. Relying on links and search engines, most people are directed to a few successful sites; the rest remain invisible to the majority of users. The result is that there’s an even greater media concentration online than in the offline world.”
As a result, almost all diversity found on blogs or other website is virtually ignored and as the author mentions:
“Freedom of the online press [...] is only guaranteed for those who enjoy large circulation. Put it another way, freedom of speech means little if no one can hear you”.
The article also goes on about how major websites tend to link to similar popular sites, and that smaller independent also tend to link to the bigger ones. Failure to engage in collaborations such as cross promotions in their own blogs therefor e make it very hard for independent or alternative people to make their voices heard in a place where there is such an overload of information.
(Source: Sharing the Wealth: an online commons for the non-profit sector - Jeff Chester and Gary O.Larson, Center for Digital Democracy)