Times Run Faster
by Pedro Meyer

                      

I am sitting here, in front of my computer screen thinking about my editorial for this month. I think of a subject, and soon enough I cross that idea out, then think of another idea, and the same thing happens again, and so hours go by, without me finding a suitable topic. I must ask myself, what is happening?.

I finally come to the conclusion, and perhaps this can also help to illustrate the actual state of technological changes and the way we communicate, because I came to realize that this editorial at one time , when the internet pace was slower than it is today, served as a precedent of what today we have come to know as blogs, and all that happens within social networks such as Facebook.

Amongst the things that have suffered the most dramatic changes is the speed at which information is presented and discussed. Let's see, before, I used to write an editorial approximately every month or so. This coincided with the publication of our online galleries. However, at the pace events unfold and news scatter, we could hardly think of this as a monthly event, as blogs have confirmed.

Something similar happened to daily newspapers. When they first started to publish online, they did so with the same "daily" frame work that had reigned with the printed page. News, of course, kept on happening at all times, and newspapers had no option but to adapt to this new rhythm of "real time" and re-think their publishing strategies.

In ZoneZero we are on the brink of making similar adjustments. Soon, this editorial page will have the format of a blog, and I will be updating you with information and ideas I believe worth sharing at a much freer and faster pace. You will also be able to give me your feedback on my editorial, and we will be able to have an online "conversation" in real time.

Of course, this will mean that it will be harder to keep up, but it would be just as hard, if not harder, to give up and stop participating at all. On Facebook for example, I have been able to share ideas the moment I get them, and they are not at all limited by an outside context. For this reason, we are in the process of making new tools to enable quicker and more efficient publishing within ZoneZero. I cannot help but be fascinated by how technology transcends discourse, and that content at the same time is affected by technology.

The idea will be that, whether I publish a note on Facebook, or post something new in my ZoneZero editorial page, you will be able to read it. This is, after all, one of the core criteria behind the web. Just like we have all become photographers with the development of intelligent photographic cameras, we have also all become in a way, editorialists. Today, everybody has something to share, comment, critique, and this I find incredibly interesting and healthy, how relationships stop being passive and become active. Personally I find much to celebrate.

Pedro Meyer
Mexico City, Coyoacan
August 2009.