Evolution at the Speed of Thought

There is another “rebuild” of sorts going on in Caps Nation, and it isn’t on the ice (even if what is on the ice is often – although not always – the focus). Or maybe it’s just a “build.”

If you haven’t been paying attention these last few days and weeks, there is a “grass roots” building of coverage infrastructure that has fairly exploded across Caps Nation. Start anywhere you like…

OK, start with the usual suspects. We’ve had “Capitals Insider” and “In the Room” for a while now, but although they are “blogs” in the more traditional sense of the term (we’re already using the term “traditional” with respect to blogs?... my, but the world moves fast these days), they already have the vague sense of being somewhat quaint. That isn’t any dig at Tarik El-Bashir, Corey Masisak, or any of their colleagues. They do really fine work. And beat reporting is still the first, consistently best source of information on the team. But…

We have all these other blogs… Japers, OFB, Capitals Kremlin, A View from the Cheap Seats, and others (check over there on the right margin for some of them). These folks have been working at their craft for a little while now, and all have carved for themselves a healthy niche in Caps Nation, providing new and unique perspectives on the team. But…

Here is where things get interesting. In a short time, we’ve seen fans jumping into the fray with impromptu video (some of the stuff being posted on the Caps “unofficial” message boards is interesting, as well as what Reed-CK is doing over at Capitals Kremlin – real-time posting of the what’s and the who’s from Kettler during development camp). And…

There is “Twitter.” We’re not entirely sold on the concept as revolutionary, but it has been a tool used by many to “real-time” their thoughts and observations of what is going on, either at camp or with respect to the latest moves the Caps are making (tweets on the Jeff Schultz contract situation have become a cottage industry in a matter of hours).

We want to reserve a special comment for some really fine work, too. If you haven’t taken a look through the photographic work being done by Jimmy Jazz over at Tic-Tac-Toe Hockey and TTT Photo, do yourself a favor and page through his work. Today’s images of Braden Holtby and the "search and destroy" look in Joe Finley's eye are just examples of the fine imagery you’ll find. He certainly has a knack and a keen eye.

What seems like a long time ago (August 30, 2006 it turns out), a “Guidelines for Granting Press Credentials to Bloggers and Other Online Media Representatives” was published at Off Wing Opinion. Today, however valuable they are or might have been, they seem like the Articles of Confederation of 1781. Fans have taken their own paths to covering the team they follow, “guidelines” be damned. And those paths have trampled on some traditional methods of covering teams that yesterday were considered cutting edge. We feel positively ancient writing this blog in the shadow of embedded video and Twitter. And we’ve been at this for less than four years.

We have no idea where things are headed. It would be a fool’s errand to try and predict or anticipate such things. One thing we’ve learned in doing this over the last four years – it won’t be “managed.” Twitter is barely three years old, although as a phenomenon its life might be measured more in weeks or months. A year ago, no one ever heard of SB Nation; today, it is as close to a media colossus as there is in the blogosphere.

When Albert Einstein was but a teenager, he pondered the idea of what a beam of light might look like if you rode a bicycle next to it. Well, take a look… things seem to be changing that fast.