Web 2.0 Website – Memorandum

I took a look at this site – www.memorandum.com, not so much for the content, but more to see what delivery of content could be achieved through this service.

The Memorandum website monitors the activity in the “blogosphere “and appears to point out the most important posts of the day. The growth of the rivers of information we’re being subjected to in the modern world needs tools that effectively help us cope with it. Blog filters are just one key example of what the future holds for us. Not sure who is in control of the content or whether we should be concerned about that (what if Memorandum gets bought out by Murdoch? Aarrrgh!).

The content is focused on US Politics and technology, but sites using the same technology and approch could easily be used for other subject matter, music, art, digital media?

Prototype application research

Most people today don’t read poetry or know much about poetry. Many teachers are shy about teaching poetry and writing, partly because creative writing, writing poetry, is messy and slow. So it’s redundant in the modern frenetically paced, MTV- digitalized world.

Or is it?

How is it that music in the digital age has been refined and reinvented and effectively metamorphasised from Sibelius to Snow Patrol? Popular music assaults our ears at the switch of a car radio, or from the TV, even in the Supermarket.

How is that art has successfully transitioned from the canvases of the Old Masters to the TV, Cinema, Computer and Games Console screen in a highly digitalized and now widely accepted art form?

How is it that the written word has palpably failed to engage the attention of modern man? Does poetry have to possess a “street cred” that is only acceptable to modern youth in the form of the violent rantings of rappers?

Can modern poets ever hope to make Joe Public stop for a second, put down his iPOD, think, reflect and wonder at the power of the written word?

Or is the only realistic way to engage the modern reader likely to be through the synthesis of written word, music, and graphic art?

Others have tried, but are you convinced?