Good article. As you know, you’ve got just a couple of years on me, but I also remember early in my career when we first got e-mail — it took about 10 minutes for us to finish punching off quick notes to others in the office and then sit wondering if this new technology would ever take off and how long it might take for our other clients and media contacts to get e-mail addresses that we could reach them with.

What’s most interesting to me about the mobile data explosion is the issue of quality versus quantity. The quantity of sources continues to explode, and while we’ve seen the quality of some of these new sources dictate a shift from traditional media (i.e., many non-traditional sources, like blogs, have gained credibility through good reporting, challenging the notion of the pay for media model that arguably built everything before it), the overall quality of “new media” is spotty with reports leaning more toward “first” than “correct.”

So for me, the question is how will the concept of media and information continue to evolve in a world that now offers as much rumor and speculation as “news” as it does genuine reporting — and will the idea of quality in reporting ever regain the value it once had (i.e., paying for premium content with the definition of “premium” resting not in exclusive content but quality content)?

I still consider myself in the minority as far as Twitter goes, but I think it is one example of how quality is segmenting technology/news sources. Initially thought of as another source of citizen journalism, Twitter is largely a funnel for celebrity “brain farts” or other fun but useless bits of information. While there have been some successes for Twitter as a revolutionary tool to not only report news but be a part of it (i.e., social unrest in Iran), those are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Best,

The other Tony Sapienza