That is starting to change. Audiophiles, for instant, used to deride the compact disc for lacking the "emotion" of vinyl. Now, one of the more pervasive methods of acquiring music is downloading MP3s, which essentially are compressed digital files which of course will lack some details. In other words, less-than-CD quality had become a standard.

    Two things are prompting this rant.

    The first is Amazon's release of the Kindle, by all accounts a revolutionary reading device that includes wireless Internet access. One columnist I read bemoaned the presence of the Web access - citing the potential intrusion on the usually solitary, immersive act of reading - but the access is there so the user download reading material (according to Amazon, entire books can be had in less than a minute). The Kindle can browse the Web but, again, by all accounts, it is an unsatisfactory experience.

    This is what passes for "convergence" these days - a device that can do something other than its primary purpose, it just doesn't do it extremely well. The major example are mobile phones. Most of them also can snap photos, shoot video, play music and browse the Web, just not as well as standalone cameras, camcorders, music players and personal computers can. From my experience, it's arguable whether some mobile phones fulfill their primary task very well.

    I get why consumers like their devices to multitask. It saves space. It's convenient. I've offloaded my PDA (personal digital assistant) because I think mobile phones now can save contacts and appointments as well or better. I've saved some space, although I've used some of it back with the addition of a bluetooth headset (brain cancer, you know). However, I still own have a separate camera, camcorder, iPod and laptop because I still covet the quality I get from standalone devices. Thanks goodness I'm not a gamer because I'd have to stuff a PSP into my carry-on luggage as well.

    The point is, digital is allowing consumers to settle. They are making the age-old swap of quality for convenience, but they are doing it in a big way.

    Which brings me to the second reason for this rant, and how it relates to this website. I've recently been taking a series of multimedia workshops conducted by an organization that I won't name, mostly because it's a good organization which just happened to tap into seminar leaders who, in my opinion, are misguided in one critical way. If I hear the phrase "good enough for the Internet" one more time, I'm going to grind right through my two front teeth. It's a term apparently intended for mainstream media (newspapers, TV and radio) that finally are trying to get serious about an online presence.

    "Good enough for the Internet" means poorly composed photographs, jittery video and scratchy audio. It's a bonus, it's convenient, so, consumer, live with it. In a way, this is reliving my recent experience with online sports networks that employed a "semi-professional" force of news gatherers and writers. Quality was not a paramount concern; I was the entire editorial staff at one company, so how big a concern could it have been? You know how many times I heard, "Well, people know what they are trying to say."

    To think, I ran away from all of that, just to hear, "People are forgiving of content on the Internet." That's difficult for me to believe. During one of the seminar sessions, a news director proudly recounted how he recently outfitted his crew with mobile phones. These phones can record audio (even phone interviews), shoot photos and access the Internet. Now his reporters can - voila - post multimedia reports on the Web.

    Boy, I just don't see it. I think some people are forgiving of digital content - those who grew up with print, TV and radio and see the Internet has a convenient alternative. But I don't think my children see it that way. The Internet is their primary source. The best advice I ever heard is that the younger generation derives its digital expectations from graphics-intensive video games. That's why we've done our best to resist the urge to "settle" at HoopGurlz.com. We edit our stories. We use as much resolution as necessary to display photos that pop. We take care in layout out the website. We think that all matters.

    The whole point of the Internet for the mainstream media is to attract the young users (not readers - users) who don't even know they (particularly newspapers) even exist. This is the MTV-SporsCenter-Xbox Generation. Think they are going to go for, say, a grainy, scratchy video of the state fair, accessed by clicking on some faded photo, over Halo 3? If users want to settle when posting user-generated content, that's their call. The professionals should be - and are - held to higher standards and expectations.

    (Slightly OT: I can't help but think back to all the times that newspaper columnists have hectored the online media for their lack of standards. Who's zooming whom now?)

    Besides, who wants their 15 minutes of fame in the form of some noisy, unsaturated photo, complete with misspelled words in the caption? Neither has much to do with digital and everything to do with the choices being made by the so-called professionals.