The Evolution of Digital Media: Why we Can't Escape Information Online

In this episode, I explore the history and evolution of digital media— from the dot come bubble, to blogging, to personality-driven media brands like Buzzfeed, and now to citizen journalism on platforms like TikTok and YouTube. I look at how the quest for information online went from active to passive, largely thanks to the introduction of algorithms and Big Tech's obsession with finding The Next Revolutionary Thing, and end by questioning the impact that AI will have on the industry. Timestamps: 3:00 The rise of domain names & URLs 5:56 Dot com bubble & burst  8:38 The rise of search engines 10:00 History of blogging 14:13 How blogging & personality-driven content impacted digital media 15:14 The Buzzfeed revolution 18:00 The Try Guys 18:43 Ladylike 19:17 Tasty 19:52 Buzzfeed Unsolved 20:57 News aggregators & citizen journalism 22:42 The AI boom Find our podcast YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC18HclY7Tt5-1e3Z-MEP7Jg  Subscribe to our weekly Substack: https://centennialworld.substack.com/  Join our Geneva home: https://links.geneva.com/invite/7eb23525-9259-4d59-95e3-b9edd35861a5  Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infinitescrollpodcast/ Follow Lauren on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurenmeisner_/  Sources: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/04/domain-names-obsolete/678000/  https://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-yahoo-is-good-but-may-get-worse/  https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2000/dec/30/internetnews.business  https://www.wired.com/2014/12/da-bom/  https://nymag.com/news/media/15971/  https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0009693/#:~:text=Summary,later%20becoming%20a%20group%20blog.  https://medium.com/the-business-of-content/how-boing-boing-adapted-to-the-social-web-e6c2e4008e46  https://www.fastcompany.com/1702167/inside-wild-wacky-profitable-world-boing-boing  https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/hogan-thiel-gawker-trial/554132/  https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/06/hulk-hogan-gawker-lawsuit-first-amendment-trial  https://gizmodo.com/this-is-how-gizmodo-started-5934312  https://www.wired.com/story/buzzfeed/  https://nymag.com/news/features/buzzfeed-2013-4/  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/business/media/ben-smith-buzzfeed-new-york-times.html  https://centennialworld.com/the-try-guys-ned-fulmer-cheating/  https://www.tubefilter.com/2019/05/24/tasty-long-form-making-it-big/  https://www.reuters.com/markets/echoes-dotcom-bubble-haunt-ai-driven-us-stock-market-2024-07-02/  https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-internet-dotcom-bubble-tech-stocks-nvidia-market-crash-gordon-2024-5  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-07-31/three-big-differences-between-the-ai-and-dot-com-bubbles  https://www.wired.com/story/dial-up-phil-lewis/ https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web/short-history-web#:~:text=Where%20the%20Web%20was%20born,and%20institutes%20around%20the%20world.  https://gizmodo.com/what-did-people-use-before-google-to-search-the-web-1843750339