What an interesting discussion that has emerged within the gardening blogosphere! First, Debra Roby picked up on my Learning how to use your new gardening tool: The Web post stating that it “made me feel like I was living in the past.” Then Amy from GardenRant picked up on the discussion and had an incredible number of insightful commenters offering their opinions and suggestions.
Now that the pot has been well and truly stirred it’s time to watch what will happen as it continues to simmer. To skim a few points that have been raised, here’s my view on what some have been saying;
- Most gardeners seem to be in the older stages of life and are therefore less likely to adapt to changing technologyies
- On the other hand, those that have adopted these changes continue to use them but find that they’re only a tool and gardening remains the focus (Preach it, sister!)
- We’re reminded that we should look at these technologies in the eyes of our readers. What features are they seeking – if any?
- And finally, we should be very aware that information overload is certainly not what most gardeners are looking for.
It’s ironic that the last point was the catalyst that prompted me to write the post in the first place. The reality is that there is so much information out there that without the right tools at our disposal we will struggle to make sense of it all.
And who do we trust to get relevant, reliable information? Google? Certainly not. Even this monopolistic search engine is realising that groups (such as gardeners) don’t take their lead from large corporations. We instead, rely on networks. Trusted people with trustworthy reputations.
There are more tools on offer for gardeners and I shall write that post at a later date, but for the time being the seemingly archaic web tools I pointed out earlier are a good place to start.