At what point is a blog post, for example, something less like a production of limited life, and something more like a piece of media, which may have a life as long as any other piece of media. That is, can new media output be regarded as self limited to some extent, presently.
It does seem that the potential for discovery, and the capacity to keep posts there on a site, which lives even if the posts are not so vibrantly alive, may actually predispose new media posts to the capacity for longevity, but a very adaptive longevity. To this might be added that potential property of stranding - where the post, even if buried in the past, lives anew in developing strands throughout the post or the new media site.
That is they can come alive or disappear, with equal facility, thus protecting themselves from a normal sense of fading (for example dated material, or material which goes out of fashion).
But a potential for a very fine grain capacity to live and fade and live again, may make for a subtle capacity for life in a new media text, for example, something for the Internet to catch hold of, which is perhaps a strong feature of it.
But is it a potential or is it already existing. It may require creatively driven material, simply because this kind of content may have a reach beyond the kind of immediate material which lives and fades quickly, and it meant to. But it may need creative material which can fade and then come to life, which may be related to topic or a set of topics, whether it does or not may be a function of tech.
In tech terms, seeing content as product, is it possible to make material which is naturalistic to a need for immediate material in new media and also has a capacity to endure. Put it this way, in tech terms: awesome content which stays awesome, or perhaps more realistically which can become awesome again and again, with facility and a kind of responsiveness. But not media which is dated or has gone out of fashion and comes back in again, so much as material which is obscured by the nature of the Internet and can get serendipitously rediscovered.
As a matter of fact, one can see in the way content is found on a site, that posts do come alive again, not merely in their shadowy, if vital, existence in newer content. This discovery gives a sense of new media validation to an act of perhaps years ago, and also validates an idea of a long term site (in relative new media terms). This is a different idea of validation, not based around immediacy, but then value in content is not necessarily an immediate realisation.
The tech concept of awesome seems tied into immediacy though; is rediscovered content really awesome in this sense. But an idea of value is not necessarily tied into immediacy, and indeed one could see that enduring value may comes from longevity and persistence. In all events it is probably necessary to have both the potential for longevity and immediacy in new media. The medium demands immediacy, as a consequence perhaps of the capacity it gives to browsing and moving on to the next.
The power of tech is perhaps that is can help cohere products with content to potentially enhance content, and perhaps enable a capacity to create this kind of longevity. So the potential is in the tech and the creation of the content. But the realisation of this may require content which can fulfill this potential, so it may become a matter of production and a matter of creation, but creation connected with its production, in a wide sense, and not so deterministic on it, as this may impede the creative element. So it is not so much should awesome content endure, but how does it, if it can.
