Or something like that.

Newslink, on theindependent.com and my first foray into the business of "newspaper video," has ended, making room for more video.

Yeah, I'm not sure what that means nor where Web 2.0 is headed either.

I suppose to Web 3.0.

From what I hear nobody knows, a reality that has not stopped the incredible expansion of the Internet. With social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, the phenomenon of YouTube (Broadcast Yourself!) and millions of blogs fueling the boom, the Web 2.0 world of information exchange and collaboration is constantly reshaping itself.

The common currency for all this seems to be video.

For a writer prone to leave the lens cap on, this can be daunting, my training in broadcast journalism 142 years ago notwithstanding.

So on election night 2006, when they put me in front of a camera to read some results, Newslink stepped off into the Web parade. We didn't call it Newslink then; we didn't call it anything. We simply believed users might want to watch the news being read to them.

That grew into a 5 to 7 minute broadcast with six of us sharing the reading, anchoring if you will, and five producers putting it all together.

A new studio and dozens of news broadcasts laced with video footage later, theindependent.com has said good-bye to Newslink and hello to a braver, newer world of even more video.

Not that we couldn't get the hang of Newslink. Just the opposite. Even though I was never that comfortable being a talking head (ala TV), the show, which we produced in the studio twice a day, was solid.

We simply needed more eyeballs on it, just like a newspaper, only the stories were talking and the pictures were moving.

Learning curve

The Web site is on to more videos.

Me, too, although I'm so old school there are days I long for a couple pieces of high cotton content parchment and a fat-nibbed fountain pen.

But, they tell me, neither newspapers nor their columnists can afford to be old school in a new world. I can be eccentric, quaint, even odd, but newspapers are shooting video for their Web sites. So deal.

That's why I'm hanging on for dear life to the learning curve for something called iMovie, the software I use to make something called a video column. My first VC was on what to do with my rebate check, and I have to admit I enjoyed creating it.

There's more: I will be interviewing reporters on camera, a discussion we hope will give viewers a chance to get inside a story. I'll also be discussing other editorial views on other shows, too, all the while the camera is whirring.

I may even smile, but I'm not promising anything, my curmudgeony writer self always at the ready.

While the possibilities are indeed exciting and I normally embrace new technology despite my advanced years some days I feel like a 14-year old collie trying to roll over the other way. You know, just far enough ahead to notice but too far behind to catch up.

Back for more

So I'm now in the business of turning my thoughts into words four times a week (newspaper columns) and turning my thoughts into words into pictures with sound (video columns) whenever I can figure out how to get all the fades, sound effects and camera angles to work.

It's a work in progress like the Web.

My age, on the other hand, requires an enormous amount of work for a little progress.

Throw into the mix here the creative muse, my life-long love who occasionally slaps me silly, punches me in the gut and makes me beg for mercy. That's because she knows I'll be back for more, something with words and ideas.

And now pictures.

That move.

And sounds.

All on the way to somewhere nobody has quite yet been, but surely a land for adventurers.

The same place you get on a map when you divide 58 years of age by Web 2.0.

George Ayoub is senior writer at The Independent.