I’ve been thinking about the relationship between weblogs and ‘reality tv’ phenomena like Big Brother, and how a merge between these two could be the future of broadcasting…

It’s now the year 2004, the World Wide Web has taken a back seat behind the plethora of web applications now delivering ‘entertainment on demand’ and shop ‘til you drop-one-click-purchasing.

Three years after buying out Napster, Microsoft dominate with their recently released internet application ‘UNIVERSE’. This application is now everywhere, on every wall in every street, in every hand, on the vacuum cleaner, the fridge, the toaster, the shower and of course, what used to be known as the television.

The software ships with multiple digital video cameras so that people can broadcast their lives to anyone who chooses to watch, it is no budget ‘entertainment’… the days sitting around the TV are now gone. Instead, families sit round and make the TV. They can also download or swap their entire entertainment collection in seconds over the internet if they choose – this includes their old CD/DVD collection (relics from the solid media age). It is worth noting that this part of MS UNIVERSE was adapted from the original Napster.

Meanwhile, the cinema is a desolate place… no-one can be bothered to sit and watch the latest in special effects for the next two hours, instead they’d rather be glued to their palm-top machine checking out what the Joneses are up to.

Whilst most of the contents of the Internet remains completely worthless, there is still plenty to be hopeful about. It’s a very different world although the original bloggers still battle on, keeping the World Wide Web sane with their hypertext. Things ain’t so bad after all.