Yet at the same time a little voice inside my head kept telling me all those tapes were a waste of money and space. Within a few years, DVD would be the standard and tapes would be hopelessly old-fashioned. In fact, I was already late with adopting the whole DVD revolution. That’s why the tapes were so cheap.

It was only a few months later that I got my first DVD player. The stack of tapes had become pretty useless.

I’m writing this down because I’ve got a similar feeling now when it comes to books. A few weeks ago I looted a second hand store. Huckleberry Finn, Brave New World, and One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest were mine for only 1 euro and 75 cents. Yeah. But then the little voice came back…

Photo Flickr / Chotda

Let’s be clear: reading the books is not the problem. But whenever I’ve finished a book and put it back in my bookcase, I feel guilty. All that paper. All those books. Just collecting dust. That’s a bad thing, for two reasons:

1. Ebooks are the future. As soon as the Kindle touches ground in Europe, I’ll say goodbye to the paper backs. I got that ‘a-ha’-moment when I read Steven Johnson’s piece for The Wall Street Journal called
   How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write
2. The great works by Thompson, Kerouac, Safran Foer, and Wolfe are basically rotting away in my little personal library. I should give every single book away to friends and colleagues. By doing that I’ll share knowledge and great stories.

Although I dream of a library with a Chesterfield and green carpet, I think I’ll have to get rid of my collection. I should make other people happy with it and read digital books. When proposing this to my Twitter followers, I got some interesting replies:

@JayHootsen: I gave away about half of my books last month. Not because of eBooks or so, but it made some people happy anyway.

@Alper: As soon as I can get my entire library digitally on my iPhone, I probably am doing something similar.

@loekessers: Of course, books are here to be read. And if you want to read a book again, you’ll support the author by buying a new one.

@RemcoBron replied that giving away books hurts authors, since people won’t buy the book anymore when they get it for free. I replied that books can go viral then. @erwblo; then said that books always have been viral. Hence the libraries, said @alper.

@obk and retweeted by @pastoorponcke;: Keep your books. They’re worth it. If not, change what you read.

@_Pim_: Dude, you won’t even look smart!

@Jerryhtmn;: I’ve always wanted a whole bunch of stuffed book shelfs, just because it looks really intellectual. So I’d keep them.

@LeanneRoos: ebooks would make your books antique or retro = money

What do you think? Do you recognize my sentiment or are you still aiming for that Chesterfield?

That’s why I asked on Twitter (I’m @dutchproblogger) which journalism movies my Twitter contacts liked. They came up with a great list, which I happily share here. So next time you’re wondering which movie to see, get inspired by these great journalism movies.

(In random order, descriptions by IMDB & trailers from YouTube)

All The President’s Men (1976)

At times it looked like it might cost them their jobs, their reputations, and maybe even their lives.

Reporters Woodward and Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President Nixon’s resignation (8.0 on imdb).
I started the discussion with this movie.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Shattered Glass (2003)

Read between the lies.

The true story of a young journalist who fell from grace when it was found he had fabricated over half of his articles (7.5 on imdb).
Suggestion by Arjo & Jan-Albert Hootsen

Click here to view the embedded video.

Parallax View (1974)

There is no conspiracy. Just twelve people dead.

An ambitious reporter gets in way-over-his-head trouble while investigating a senator’s assassination which leads to a vast conspiracy involving a multinational corporation behind every event in the worlds headlines (7.4 on imdb).
Suggestion by Albert Nijmeijer

Click here to view the embedded video.

Foreign Correspondent (1940)

MYSTERY IN WHISPERS that cracks like THUNDER!

On the eve of WW2, a young American reporter tries to expose enemy agents in London (7.7 on imdb).
Suggestion by Albert Nijmeijer

Click here to view the embedded video.

Year of Living Dangerously (1982)

A Love Caught In The Fire Of Revolution

A young Australian reporter tries to navigate the political turmoil of Indonesia during the rule of President Sukarno with the help of a diminutive photographer (7.0 on imdb).
Suggestion by Albert Nijmeijer

Click here to view the embedded video.

Killing Fields (1984)

He was a reporter for the New York Times whose coverage of the Cambodian War would win him a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. But the friend who made it possible was half the world away with his life in great danger… This is the story of war and friendship, the anguish of a country and of one man’s will to live.

A photographer is trapped in Cambodia during tyrant Pol Pot’s bloody “Year Zero” cleansing campaign, which claimed the lives of two million “undesirable” civilians (8.0 on imdb).
Suggestion by Albert Nijmeijer

Click here to view the embedded video.

Professione: reporter (1975)

I used to be somebody else…but I traded myself in.

A frustrated war correspondent, unable to find the war he’s been asked to cover, takes the risky path of co-opting the I.D. of a dead arms dealer acquaintance (7.7 on imdb).
Suggestion by Albert Nijmeijer

Click here to view the embedded video.

Citizen Kane (1941)

365 days in the making – and every minute of it an exciting NEW thrill for you !

Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance (8.6 on imdb).
Suggestion by Albert Nijmeijer & Jan-Albert Hootsen

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Insider (1999)

Warning: Exposing the Truth May Be Hazardous

A research chemist comes under personal and professional attack when he decides to appear in a “60 Minutes” expose on Big Tobacco (8.0 on imdb).
Suggestion by Jan-Albert Hootsen

Click here to view the embedded video.

Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)

We will not walk in fear of one another.

Broadcast journalist ‘Edward R. Murrow (I)’ looks to bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy (7.7 on imdb).
Suggestion by Arjo

Click here to view the embedded video.

Infamous (2006)

There’s more to the story than you know

While researching his book In Cold Blood, writer Truman Capote develops a close relationship with convicted murderers Dick Hickock and Perry Smith (7.2 on imdb).
Suggestion by Arjo

Click here to view the embedded video.

Control Room (2004)

Different channels. Different truths.

A documentary on perception of the United States’s war with Iraq, with an emphasis on Al Jazeera’s coverage (7.8 on imdb).
Suggestion by Arjo

Click here to view the embedded video.

Runaway Jury (2003)

Trials are too important to be decided by juries.

A juror on the inside and a woman on the outside manipulate a court trial involving a major gun manufacturer (7.1 on imdb).
Suggestion by Steven van Vessum

Click here to view the embedded video.

Charlie Wilson’s War

Based on a true story. You think we could make all this up?

A drama based on a Texas congressman Charlie Wilson’s covert dealings in Afghanistan, where his efforts to assist rebels in their war with the Soviets have some unforeseen and long-reaching effects (7.4 on imdb).
Suggestion by Steven van Vessum

Click here to view the embedded video.

Final Edition (2007)

After 149 years and 311 days, the Rocky Mountain News published its final edition on February 27, 2009.

Read the story on the website of The Rocky Mountain News. Below is the whole (!) movie.
Suggestion by Joris van Meel

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wag the Dog (1997)

A Hollywood producer. A Washington spin-doctor. When they get together, they can make you believe anything.

Before elections, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to “fabricate” a war in order to cover-up a presidential sex scandal (7.0 on imdb).
Suggestion by @jack_nl

Click here to view the embedded video.

Frost/ Nixon (2008)

400 million people were waiting for the truth.

A dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate television interviews between British talk-show host David Frost and former president Richard Nixon (8.0 on imdb).
Suggestion by: Jelte Nieuwenhuis & David Noël

Click here to view the embedded video.

A Mighty Heart (2007)

It was an event that shocked the world. This is the story you haven’t heard.

Mariane Pearl embarks on a frantic search to locate her journalist husband, Daniel, when he goes missing in Pakistan (6.8 on imdb).
Suggestion by Jan-Albert Hootsen

Click here to view the embedded video.

État de Siège (1972)

A film about a journalist’s inquiry into the Uruguayan junta

In Uruguay in the early 1970s, an official of the US Agency for International Development (a group used as a front for training foreign police in counterinsurgency methods) is kidnapped by a group of urban guerillas (7.7 on imdb).
Suggestion by Jan-Albert Hootsen

Click here to view the embedded video.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Give us your brain for two hours and you will never be the same again…..(Icelandic)

An oddball journalist and his psychopathic lawyer travel to Las Vegas for a series of psychadelic escapades (7.6 on imdb).
Suggestion by Henriëtte Klijnstra & Arjo

Click here to view the embedded video.

Syriana (2005)

Everything is connected

A politically-charged epic about the state of the oil industry in the hands of those personally involved and affected by it (7.1 on imdb).
Suggestion by David Veneman

Click here to view the embedded video.

Capote (2005)

Truman Capote (Hoffman), during his research for his book In Cold Blood, an account of the murder of a Kansas family, the writer develops a close relationship with Perry Smith, one of the killers (7.6 on imdb).
Suggestion by Jan-Albert Hootsen & Arjo

Click here to view the embedded video.

State of Play (2009)

Find The Truth

A team of investigative reporters work alongside a police detective to try to solve the murder of a congressman’s mistress (7.6 on imdb).
This movie gave me the idea of making this list

Click here to view the embedded video.

Almost famous (2000)

Experience it. Enjoy it. Just don’t fall for it.

A high-school boy is given the chance to write a story for Rolling Stone Magazine about an up-and-coming rock band as he accompanies it on their concert tour (8.0 on imdb).
Suggestion by Albert Nijmeijer

Click here to view the embedded video.

And some series

The Wire, season 5 (2007)

Read between the lines

Baltimore drug scene, seen through the eyes of drug dealers, and law enforcement (9.7 on imdb).
Suggested by Alper Çuğun: ‘In season 5 the focus is on the inner workings and cutbacks at the Baltimore Sun.’

Click here to view the embedded video.

State of Play (2003)

Sometimes you have to read between the lines

A thriller set in London, in which a politician’s life becomes increasingly complex as his research assistant is found dead on the London Underground and, in a seemingly unrelated incident, a teenage drug dealer is shot dead (8.7 on imdb).
Suggested by Tijs Teulings

Click here to view the embedded video.

Live from Baghdad (2002)

The Gulf War, 1991. No story is worth dying for – but this was the story of a lifetime

A group of CNN reporters wrestle with journalistic ethics and the life-and-death perils of reporting during the Gulf War (7.3 on imdb).
Suggested by Jan-Albert Hootsen

Click here to view the embedded video.

Missing a great journalism movie here? Drop a line in the comments!

Writer Janine Warner wrote a couple of books about the Internet and journalism. She recognizes the very same phenomenon that I’ve just described. At the International Symposium on Online Journalism, Warner said: ,,journalism students still dream about their name in the byline of a newspaper article. That’s the moment you’ve made it as a journalist. Even for me, it’s sometime hard to take Internet journalism seriously.”

What Warner wants from students is an entrepreneurial spirit. She encourages students to find their own publishing channels and to start building their networks. That’s where blogging comes into play.

Blogging meant the beginning of my network. I interviewed my journalistic heroes for Spotlight Effect, chatted with web celebs who knew my blog The Next Web and commented on articles written by people I admired. Thanks to my rather unusual name, some folks remembered my name. One of them happened to be Hans Nijenhuis, who hired me for nrc.next.

The Eye of the Storm. Photo: Flickr / Tim Caynes

Thanks to blogging, I was introduced in journalism heaven. I’ve written about the journalistic skills I’ve learned at nrc.next earlier, and I think it’s fair to say that those experienced journalists made me a better blogger. Even though they had little or no experience with blogs. They’ve taught me the basics of researching and writing good articles.

So now that I’ve used the traditional journalism techniques for blogging, I might as well share some information about the digital revolution on paper. That’s why I wrote a newspaper article about digital nomads, for which I interviewed TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher, Wordpress’ Matt Mullenweg and writer Paul Carr.

The big picture here: it’s incredibly important for journalists to train bloggers and for bloggers to inform journalists about the changes we’re going through.

• Journalists are the professionals who have the channels with thousands of followers and know how to produce great content
• Bloggers understand the shift in publishing and have an entrepreneurial spirit

How exciting is it when you combine that? Dan – fake Steve Jobs – Lyons already gave the answer during the Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco conference in April 2008, he said:

We, the Web 2.0 attendees, are in the eye of the storm. No, we’re creating the storm. [..] A beautiful media future is lying ahead of us. We’ve built a strong foundation for the online dream, and it will get better when the big media companies jump in.

US newspapers are dying, now it’s time for us to come up with exciting solutions. Let’s forge forces.

Let me start with a basic assumption: you blog to get your ideas and stories under the attention of others. If you’re not and treat your blog as a diary or personal archive, that’s perfectly ok. The idea behind this post though, is that you want to get your word out.

I'm sure this musician wants an audience. Photo Flickr / Guido van Nispen

Blogging is all about telling stories and having conversations, I’m with Blom on that one. There’s only one difference between Blom and a lot of other bloggers: he already had a reputation, a personal brand as you will. For those of you who are not from Holland: before Blom started blogging, he already was an influential in the Dutch music and new media scene. With such a great track record, you never have to start from scratch.

A lot of beginning bloggers don’t have such a large network. When I started blogging, I was studying communication science. Just like 300 others that year. In order to get attention, I had to use certain strategies. Like video taping an argument between the Dutch prime-minister and a famous tv journalist. Or interviewing the 100 top marketing bloggers about their blogging adventures.

For beginning bloggers who don’t have an impressive track record yet, branding strategies are of the utmost importance. Otherwise you’re just blogging for yourself.

So if you’ve just started blogging: think of non-intrusive ways to get attention for your blog. Don’t spam your influentials, always keep in mind that you have to add value for others. Interview them, write a post in which you share your best tips, do something extraordinary.

But most of all, take the advice of Blom for granted. Write those beautiful stories. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to think of some techniques to reach the people you want to inspire.

Want to read more?

• Here’s how I interviewed the 100 top marketing bloggers.
• If you’re Dutch, Blom’s personal blog is here. Not from Holland? Read the posts I’ve written about him on this blog
• An excellent post about personal branding and getting attention on Skelliewag: How to Start (or Start-over) Building Your Personal Brand
• The Blog Promotion archive on Problogger.net

Drawing by the great Thomas Hawke

Hunter S Thompson is a hero of many. The writer of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the most honest book about the Hell’s Angels appeals to thousands of young journalists. He invented Gonzo Journalism. A journalism genre that finds its roots in New Journalism, where the old distinctions between journalism and creative writing were blurred. Tom Wolfe and Truman Capote are two of the most famous New Journalism-writers.

Gonzo Journalism took things a little further. It’s more colorful, wilder and more extreme. As the BBC puts it: ,where Tom Wolfe politely declined an acid tab in his iconic Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Hunter S Thompson denied himself nothing. (..) The writer became the story. Structure was thrown out of the window, replaced by a shambolic, yet magical, rollercoaster ride of artless hedonism.”

So Thompson died in 2005. You’ve read all his books. What’s left? Pointless nostalgia? Or can we reinvent this genre? Give it a twist and adapt it to the digital revolution which took place? Let’s find out.

What’s there to write about?

To get an idea how we can reinvent Gonzo Journalism we should come up with some ideas for stories first. After that we can brainstorm about how we could cover these subjects in a new and rocking way. I posted the following message on Twitter yesterday:

Want to experiment with Gonzo Journalism (coined by Hunter S Thompson) and thinking about spectacular subject. Who has an idea?

Some stories that need Gonzo style reporting

Olaf Koens, a Dutch correspondent in Moscow suggested to send a reporter to war-zone, since that’s one of the subjects where Hunter S Thompson had flaws. A few hours later, he added:

Antonie Fountain from the band Little Things That Kill suggested to investigate trafficking and forced prostitution on the Red Light District.

Tom Rovers said that we should go to a music festival since most festival reports are boring and can use some Gonzo style reporting.

Twitter user Gumbah said we’ve to investigate coffeeshop suppliers by posting outside their doors. ,,Gonzo style would be to infiltrate their system,” I replied. Then he came up with the brilliant idea to start our own shop.

Journalistic talent Loek Essers has sent me a direct message with two story ideas and even mentioned who should write them. Firstly a story by Antonie van Campen about the world of the Roma in Europe and secondly Adriaan Alsema should write a Gonzo story about gang wars in Colombia.

Last but not least, Sjeltur had a gonzo tip that sounded somewhat familiar: ,,Start a political party. Make a weird movie. Get elected and become THE new politician! ”

Those ideas make a great start, what’s next?

So the idea of reinventing Gonzo Journalism has been coined, the first story ideas have been submitted, what’s next? Well, I’d say two things:

• Let’s come up with even more story ideas
• Let’s think about how we can use new technology for the reinvention of Gonzo

I can’t wait to see your comments and ideas and write another post about them. Gonzo style!

(anybody who says Gonzo 2.0 must buy the other commenters a bottle of whiskey)

Photo Flickr / Thomas Hawk

So here’s list. On the left are the values that come with web 2.0. On the right are some old values which we should adopt again.

• Quick news ,,be the first” -> analysis, offer context
• Collect friends and followers -> inspire a small group (so they’ll tell others about you)
• Be everywhere (Twitter, Plurk, Friendfeed, Pownce etc etc) -> choose your network (see above)
• (Micro)blog every blurp -> only publish when it’s interesting and entertaining for others
• Innovate -> help others to understand the digital revolution

This list is just the beginning. I hope you can make it longer by suggesting some old values which should be restored in all their beauty.

• Firstly, there’s Twitter. Short blurps are reserved for that microblogging service now (unless your name is Seth Godin).
• Thanks to 3G dongels and rather impressive wifi coverage all over the world, we can blog wherever we want.
• The boundaries between journalists and bloggers are becoming more blurred by the day.

So, how does that affects us? Here’s some advice from investor Chris Sacca, writer Jeff Jarvis, and Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg. They were all at The Next Web and showed us bloggers the way to go.

Chris Sacca about how you should use Twitter

Chris Sacca at The Next Web Conference. Photo Flickr / Anne Helmond

There are 700 people in this room. If you were standing on stage, you would be quite nervous: shaking a bit, maybe with a dry throat. When having such a large audience, you will sure try to entertain or inspire them. We tend to forget that we have a large audience on Twitter too. So before you tweet ask yourself: am I providing value? Will it put a smile on someones face? Am I expanding someones horizon? Otherwise, don’t write it.

Jeff Jarvis about the new role of journalists

Jeff Jarvis at The Next Web Conference. Photo Flickr / Anne Helmond

Newspapers will die, there will be chaos. Yet news will return as a new, more complex, ecosystem. Hobbyists will cover news – alongside with bloggers and journalists. Today, journalists are thinking: Oh my God, this is too much clutter. What they should do is offering tools to the new community of news makers. Journalists can become educators. They can train the community and will find news there. It will be their new role.

(Thanks to Matthijs van den Broek for taking notes)

Matt Mullenweg about how traveling can make you a better blogger

Robin Wauters interviews Matt Mullenweg. Photo Flickr / Anne Helmond

My office is wherever my laptop is. As long as there’s a wifi connection, I’m able to connect to everything I need for my work. (..) As soon as I get somewhere I tweet or blog about it. I always get replies from locals, offering to show me around. That leads to great experiences. Like the other day, I found myself singing karoake songs with some Hongkong locals till six in the morning. Although I travel a lot, I hardly see any of the touristic highlights. I rather work in a local café.

Imagine how inspired you’ll get by all this traveling.

But wait, there’s more.

When you’ve got a room full of geeks, you can be pretty sure the event will be well covered. Here are some of the best pieces written about The Next Web:

• Interview With Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg: “Blogging Is Not Slowing Down” - on TechCrunch by Robin Wauters
• Again, by the great Robin Wauters: Interview With Andrew Keen At The Next Web 2009: “Web 2.0 Is F*Cked”
• Jim Stolze is the kind of guy we need in these times of information overload. He went offline for a month and learned how the web can make us a happier person. Here’s his advice.
• My former liveblogging buddy Anne Helmond wrote an excellent post about Andrew Keen’s keynote: “Web 2.0 is dead, long live Twitter”

Well, I took this advice for granted. And yes, I do think Remnick’s career is incredible. During his time as the Washington Post’s Moscow correspondent, he wrote a magnificent book about the Soviet empire’s demise called Lenin’s Tomb. That’s what got him the Pullitzer Prize.

People like Remnick make me more ambitious. When the thought of blogging-for-another-three-hours-while-the-sun-is-shining almost kills me, I think about careers like Remnick’s and find new energy.

David Remnick in his office. Photo: Martin Schoeller/The New Yorker

So I’m glad Matthijs van Nieuwkerk (also somebody I admire) advised me to look up his best work. On the other hand, Remnick is so incredibly good in what he does: will I ever come close to that? I can’t write a Pullitzer Prize-winning book. I’m even having a hard time writing this post. Poor me, discouraged by world’s best journalists.

But there’s good news: in about ten years, aspiring journalists won’t have the same struggle as I have now.

Find the early work of your hero

Imagine the year 2019. I tell a young guy – let’s call him Bob – to look up some work of two great journalists Paul Vereijken and Jaap Stronks (two guys in their twenties who are now laying the foundations of a beautiful career in journalism). Bob does a Google search – or the modern equivalent of that – and finds work of the two journalists. There will be one major difference with the year 2009 though. Instead of just finding Vereijken’s and Stronks’ best work – like I only found Remnick’s highlights of his career -, Bob also finds stuff that the two journalists produced in the early days of their career. Like Twitterradio.

Last week, Stronks and Vereijken launched this Dutch online radio show about new media. Every two weeks, they interview media professionals, discuss the latest trends and experiment with over-the-top jingles. Listeners can ask questions via twitter by including #twitterradio in their message.

Nike was right

Stronks and Vereijken tested the format last Thursday. The result was an entertaining and surprisingly professional show. Sure, there were some technical difficulties and I’m sure the pace of the show will be faster next time, but I had a good time during those thirty minutes (except for the part when they started to ask me tough questions about nrc.next). So I can only agree with the comment of the deputy editor in chief of NOS News Tim Overdiek: ,,Twitterradio, just do it”.

Let’s go back to Bob. He has googled Vereijken and Stronks and finds out that they were struggling with some weird echo during their first episode of Twitterradio. All of a sudden, these heroes become more human. ,,Ha, they used to face the same challenges as I’m doing now,” Bob thinks. He feels more motivated, as he realizes they’re only human too. With a lot of hard work and some luck, he can become a hero as well.

It took me a while to find out that I should have killed that darling rule as soon as I started blogging. Sub headers in blog posts have a totally different meaning than the ones in newspaper articles. They have to lure the leader into the article, keep him reading, since his attention is gone as soon as your article gets a little boring.

A t-shirt my buddy Renato Valdés Olmos designed

• Trying to explain everything. Now I just link to articles that concern the subject
• Using popular words and “I”. Blogging is about writing in a conversational style, so yes, I do use “I” and “me” now.
• Staying away from marketing techniques. When you’re a blogger, you’ll have to come up with ways to get people to click on your articles in the RSS reader and Twitter. Writing catchy headlines and lists posts are examples of that.
• Acting like the reader doesn’t exist. One of the most interesting aspects of blogging is the discussion below the articles. So yes, sometimes you’ll have to ask the reader something in order to get a reaction.

On the other hand: when you’re a blogger, you can learn a whole lot from journalists.

Combine the new blogging approaches with some good old journalistic values – like fact checking, hearing out both parties, good argumentation, hunting for your own news, and did I mention fact checking? – and you’ll have a blog that stands out from the crowd. It will be a blog that a) is personal and engaging and b) stands for great quality and trustworthiness.

The most bloggers just post stuff as soon as they’ve read it somewhere else. So really, how hard is it to differentiate from them?

I came up with that comparison when I visited the exhibition Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era in The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. It showed what the hippies were all about: their ideas about sexual revolution, equal rights and anti-war attitude were revolutionary back then. Yet because they fought so hard for it, we consider them normal now.

The hippies were partly inspired by LSD: the greatest musicians used it for their songs, gonzo journalists like Hunter S. Thompson wrote about the trips he had and Timothy Leary researched the effects. The last one called upon everybody to turn on, tune in and drop out: explore several states of consciousness, join the movement and say goodbye to the materialistic society.

Leary, who had received a master’s degree at Washington State University in 1946, and a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1950, started a LSD promotion tour. He inspired many men and women to take a different view on modern-day society. Unfortunately he lost his job as lecturer in psychology at Harvard and eventually ended up in jail for a while. For many people though, he’s a still an enlightened hero.

For some reason I experience a weird nostalgic feeling about this summer of love. It doesn’t make sense though, since it all took place 19 years before I was born. I think I just love the idea of fighting for new values and opinions. Yet I won’t put my hands on LSD and the summer of love is only experienced by toothless hobo’s. So how can I experience the feeling of this time?

Dutch journalist Freek Staps interviewed an old hippie last year and asked what’s left of those good old days. The bittered man answered:

„Not these days. The age today is so different. ‘Be Here Now’ was the slogan then. Now with cell phones and the Internet and all, it’s ‘Be Somewhere Else Now.”

And the Internet, that’s a phenomenon I really love. I even live of it. So how can I turn this awkward nostalgic feeling into action? By listening to Timothy Leary again. A few years before he died, he said:

,,Internet is the LSD of the 1990s”

The picture Leary drew, becomes more vivid everyday. The nineties are behind us, yet NOW the web is like LSD was in the sixties. It’s called Web 2.0, the blogosphere, a place where everybody can pick up the digital pen and start publishing their stories. Multinationals are attacked by bloggers, governments have to face a critical mass on a daily basis and people with the same passion find each other. Protesters gather on the web and at the same time is a treasure room filled with millions of galleries with photos, videos and web art (have a look at WebCanvas, it’s a perfect example).

This thought inspires me: I’m part of a new revolution. I can write, publish and say what I want, when I want, and moreover, I have an audience without the help of some company. But I won’t make the same mistake as some of the LSD users. They didn’t see LSD as a means, but thought of it as the ultimate goal.

The same can happen with Web 2.0. I won’t focus on getting as many followers as possible. I’ll try to motivate and inspire the small group that’s following me. Like Tim O’Reilly said during Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco: “focus on big hairy audacious goals”. I’m gonna do just that.

Interesting links

• Read a Dutch story I wrote about this theory on cultural blog Sargasso.
• BBC: Bedtime for Gonzo?
• TIME: Was Leary right?
• Skulluminati Research: Timothy Leary’s Message to You, Here, Now

The presentation

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The Tim O’Reilly talk