The Value of Writing and Water

The logical end to Michael Rosenblum's ice analogy, is that writing will be, or perhaps already is, so abundant that it is worthless.

Like water, that doesn't mean that we can live without it. It is vital to our lives and to everything we do. But like water, it's just so abundant that it has no value. Does a restaurant ever charge you for water from the tap?

And of course people will still pay for water if it comes in a bottle with a French name on it. But as soon as people realize that the quality of the water coming out of the tap is as good as the bottled variety, they'll stop buying bottled water.

(Later: Here's a link to a post that discusses why content may be losing it's value.
And: Here's a link to Kevin Kelly's eight generatives that make content Better Than Free.)

The First Draft Problem

When you read something written, whether it's a book, or the instructions to your toaster, you want it to be as good as it could be. Well written, informative, clear, economical in its use of words.

That's why book writing and journalism include exhaustive processes to edit our scribblings. That's why writers think of writing as a craft. In the editing process scribblings become writing. Disjointed thoughts, through a collaborative process between writers and editors, become good writing.

But when I'm writing this blog, no one is telling me to cut this, or rewrite that. That's my concern. Certainly I do some editing myself. I rework for copy. I check my facts and my spelling.

But there are times when I don't have time for that. I'm just writing an idea. I get it on the page and I publish it. I think "I'll go back later and work on that." But the fact is that the world moves on. It's often a long time before I get back to a post. Sometimes I never get back there.

I suspect most blog writing is like this. And I suspect that very little is edited by a second person; an editor.

Which leads me to the lament of journalists and J-School professors. That content on the Web is not edited, crafted or fact-checked.

I call that The First Draft Problem. We're creating a huge resource of information, but it's all first draft content.