Full Circle Associates

Jon Garfunkle has put the finishing touches on his series of essays, The New Gatekeepers. Clearly a labor of love, Jon has pulled together a ton of issues and ideas that are worth reading for anyone intersted in the blogosphere. You may not agree with everything Jon lays out, but damn, there is a lot of food for thought here. From the intro:

"To read the headlines, or the bloglines, one might get the sense that the bloggers have arrived on the scene to challenge the “gatekeepers” of the big media. This is an essay in eight parts to examine this theme.

I will argue here that gatekeepers are inherently needed by the architecture of the blogosphere-- as it has evolved, since 2001, into a public consciousness. This architecture has been developed out of certain values, and those values are the ones espoused by those same thought leaders. That is not to say that there are other architecture, values, or leaders present; merely that this is the dominant form for the moment. (That there are other types of blogs with minimal involvement of the public interest, I have covered this at length in Blogger Archetypes.)"

The sections include:

• Part 1: Changing of the Guard
  
• Part 2: Who They Are
  
• Part 3: Their Values
  
• Part 4: The Alternative
  
• Part 5: The Problem of Crowds
  
• Part 6: A Summary
  
• Part 7: Solutions
  
• Part 8: The Future