The Return of God to Zion

I wrote this article for the Atticus competion, a competition held each year at Mediaedge:cia international, inviting all the employees under 30 years to talk about a certain subject.

The subject for this year was:

' A short history of blogging 2000 – 2020 '

The rise of Weblogging has been a cold shower for the complacent mass communication industries. It seems like Blogs are everywhere these days. You can't seem to surf the Internet without seeing the word Blog somewhere.

Today, January 27, 2020
In the year 2020, people have access to a breadth and depth of information.
Unimaginable in an earlier age, the internet aura rules everywhere, anywhere and everyone.
Everyone contributes in some way; everyone participates to create a living, breathing media scape.
However, the press, as you know it, has ceased to exist.

The road to 2020 began in the mid 20th century when Tim Burners-Lee, in 1989, invented the Wold Wide Web.
1994 sees the founding of Amazon.com, a virtual store that sells everything and can make suggestions. It marked the introduction of internet sales in the “consumption based” human life.
Surprisingly, 21st century news organisations are an “after thought” of a not too distant past.

A Scent of change

In 1998, Google was created. Its algorithm is similar to the logic of Amazon, and it treats recommendations, and powers the world’s most effective search engine.

1999, Tivo transformed Television by unshackling it from the constraints of time!
Everyone who tried it, never went back.
That same year, Piral lab created Blogger, a personal publishing tool.

A Blog is born . Long live the Blog

Web logs initially used the abbreviated version: wee-blog, with a Web log editor referred to as a blogger.
Now, every type from advertising blogs to zoology blogs exist, with every topic in-between available online.
In 2000, a new concept was born: the "Extimity", ascendant of the blogosphere. Instantly, people didn’t fear to put in scene their intimacy and leave an electronic trace with each purchase, movement, conversation: the company, described by George Orwell, in its book “1984” had left the place to a new organization where individuality was voluntarily exposed on the web.
It was the advent of the democratization and the globalisation of the blogs; the perfect threat to all traditional medias.
Blogging could be to “words” what Napster is to “music” - except this time, it'll really work.
The perfect Mix

In 2002 Friendster came to combine the life map of each subscriber, his/her interests, social networks, values and beliefs; Millions of people rushed and were caught by its feasibility.
Also, in 2002 Google launched Google News: a news portal that’s edited entirely by computers. Media agencies cried out their loss of market share everywhere in the world.

Beginning 2003, Google buys Blogger. Their interest in Blogger isn’t unreasonable ‘cause the year 2003 was the year of the Blog. Google plans are a mystery.

Satellite photos of personalities’ houses are on the front page of every website magazine.
Google Earth set its foot in the virtual reality existence.

In the same year, Google unveils Gmail and offers for every user a Giga bite of free space.
Amazon unveils A9; a search engine built on Google technology and Amazon trademark incorporation.

In 2004, Google went public: It bought Tivo, a major acquisition since its creation.
In response to Google moves, Microsoft buys Friendster in 2005 and the Podcast was born with its trademarks set in seconds if not at an eye glance.

The Year where everything began

Google combines all its services: Tivo, Blogger, Gmail, Google News
It was the virtual masterpiece of 2006 known as the Google Grid, a universal platform that offers limitless storage spaces for media of all kind. Subscribers can store and share media and it is accessible from anywhere.
Each user has his/her own privacy of hiding his/her virtual existence or share it to the world.
It has never been easier to create and consume media where information was custom-tailored for each human.

The Alliance that will challenge Microsoft came in 2008 by the creation of “GoogleZone”, the biggest joint venture ever in the history of the world, Google joins Amazon.
An unparalleled search technology was created and shared with every human being.
Together, they used their detailed information and totally customized it and shaped it for every breathing individual on the Net.

In 2010, every user was archived; His/her profile, demographic and ethnographic contents became public.
The old referents and experts in media were beaten in breach.

GoogleZone check mates Microsoft, and wins against the New York Times
GoogleZone constructed news stories by dynamically stripping sentences from all news articles found on the web and effectively combining them to create a personalized news story for all users.

In 2011, the slumbering of the state awakes to make its first and final stand.
The New York Times sues GoogleZone.

The NYT accused GoogleZone of violating the rules and ethics of journalism by using robots to extract information and customize them to net surfers.
On May, Friday the 13th 2011, New York Times lost the case.

On Tuesday, first of August 2014, “Gamma” was launched by GoggleZone.
An operation summarized by: The Evolving Personalized Information Construct
Chaotic media is filtered, ordered and delivered; everyone contributes and many get paid.
“Gamma” produced a customized package for each user regarding their preferences, and shaped their products so quickly that needs were created by the second.

Back to ZION

GoogleZone combined its resources with: podcast, webcams, video conferences, mobile phones, virtual banking, GoogleEarth … in a way that it went out of control.
The operation was named: ZION
We are in 2018, the year where humans lost their entity, and the real ME was replaced by the virtual ME, and the “Self” became an old fashioned word only found in dictionaries.

The MAN lost its HUE and was contemplated, instantly and totally.

The Hacker

Humans always dreamt of the Return of God on earth, or the Arrival of God on earth.
Well! Someone hacked “ZION” and penetrated the existence of humanity.
He ruled, He controlled, and He was both, loved & hated.

At its worst, Zion was largely a collection of trivia, narrow and shallow.
This is what we wanted, and this is what we chose.
And, here’s what we got.

GOD appeared in ZION, in the shape of a Hacker, on the dusk of a Hot winter day.