Jay Rosen at PressThink has recorded some great thoughts from the Blogging, Journalism and Credibility conference this past week at Harvard. One of the reason that I like Rosen's reflections, is that while some in that elite group that was invited to the conference get overly excited about whatever the latest technology is instead of looking at the greater trends/themes/lessons that these developments underline, Rosen always does a phenomenal job analyzing the larger point.

This is a topic that I hope to continue to write more about, but for now I'll point to Kevin Maney's technology column in USA Today: "Chill, blogophiles, you're not the first to do what you're doing." Note that this column is very familiar to the points I made here a couple of weeks ago. Maney, however, makes that point with great wit and a far better turn of phrase than my own.

And here is an excerpt from Jay Rosen's thoughts, where he outlines some of the major themes running through the blogging conference:

The free and open archive. People are starting see how reversing course make sense.

Many from Big Media (but also bloggers) were candid in describing how shocked they were at being so in the dark about podcasting or Wikis or software or something else going on. "I didn't know much about Technorati, or the Wiki family, or so many other innovators, and now I do," said Bill Buzenberg of Minnesota Public Radio.

I was right, in my pre-conference post: Bloggers vs. Journalists is Over. Tensions remain, as they should. Now life in a shared media space can be plotted. You will hear that going on in post two. Big Wigs Confer, Part Two.

There is no doubt in sifting through the reactions: The Wiki "idea" hit home for people who thought they had been paying attention. Turns out the Wiki encyclopedia is like a dry run for Open Source Journalism. It finally dawned for some people that blogging and Wikis ought to be treated as equals. You will hear that in post three, which is about the Wiki Buzz. Big Wigs Confer, Part Three.

Update:
Here's another great article ("Blog Overkill: The danger of hyping a good thing into the ground") from Slate, which is making its rounds like wildfire.

Jack Schafer writes:

The premature triumphalism of some bloggers indicates that they haven't paid attention to how Webified journalists have become. They also ignore media history. New media technologies almost never replace old media technologies, they merely force old technologies to adapt and find new ways to connect with their audiences. Radio killed the "special edition," but newspapers survived. When television dethroned radio as the hearthside infobox and cratered the Hollywood box office, radio became a mobile medium, and Hollywood devoted itself to spectaculars that the tiny TV set couldn't adequately display. The competitive spiral has continued, with cable TV, VCRs and DVDs, satellite TV and radio broadcasters, and now Internet broadcasters entering the fray. The only extinct mass medium that I can think of is the movie house newsreel.

The likelihood that blogs will vanquish mainstream media recalls the prediction Michael Crichton made in his 1993 essay "Mediasaurus." Crichton wrote that the New York Times and one commercial TV network would vanish within a decade and would be replaced by artificial-intelligence agents, skimming information and the news from news databases and composing front pages or broadcasts tailored to the interests and needs of individuals. Like Shamberg's guerrilla revolution, Crichton's infotopia failed to arrive as promised. In 2002, Crichton good-naturedly claimed that his vision will still come true; it's just running a little late.

Well put, Mr. Schafer.