Nov 26th, 2007 | Media 2.0, Social Media | No Comments
Steve Outing, a long-time journalist and staffer with the Poynter Institute, has written a column about his venture into social news or “crowdsourced” local content — through a company called Enthusiast Group — and how it has since shut down. Steve makes some worthwhile points about why he thinks his attempt to blend professional content and “user-generated” content failed, and in a nutshell it appears to boil down to this: too much of the UGC just wasn’t good enough.
“In hindsight, I think we tried to rely too heavily on user submitted content. Even though a lot of it was really great, the overall experience was weak when compared to, say, reading a climbing or a mountain biking magazine filled with quality professional content throughout.”
And Steve says that he just didn’t have enough staff to generate the professional-level content that would make the site worthwhile, or sort through the user-generated stuff to get at the good stuff (”curating,” people like to call it now).
“We believed that having a core level of professional content –- from our site editors -– would be enough to attract a loyal following even if the user-submitted content wasn’t enough on its own. But I think we didn’t have nearly enough of that. If I had any money left to throw at the business, I’d hire more well-known athletes and adventurers, so that the core was a larger pool of professional content.”
Steve says he’s not giving up on UGC, but he thinks it’s bad to rely on it to carry too much of the freight for a content-related business.
“I’m not saying that user-submitted content isn’t worthwhile, let me be clear about that. I am saying that I think you can’t rely too much on it. And you need to filter out and highlight the best user content, while downplaying the visibility of the mediocre stuff.”
Steve’s venture isn’t the only UGC-based one to shut down, of course. Dan Gillmor’s Bayosphere was a valiant effort that failed (I wrote about it here) and was later merged with Backfence, which then also failed. Jeremy Wagstaff of Loose Wire says that Steve’s experience reinforces the fact that there will always be a place for professional journalists. I don’t know why, but that makes me feel all warm inside 
Nov 26th, 2007 | Media 2.0, Social Media | No Comments
According to the New York Times, the ABC television network has signed a deal with a social-networking site you might have heard of — a little site called Facebook — that will allow users of Facebook to “follow” reporters through the U.S. election and talk about the issues, and also pose questions for political debates that will be jointly sponsored by ABC and Facebook. Not exactly a new idea, as many have pointed out.
Caroline McCarthy of CNET doesn’t think Facebook or ABC News are going to have much success with this idea because, well… Facebook users see “the site as a platform for social recreation, not information consumption.” In other words, they’re too busy goofing around with Super-Pokes and sharing photos of each other staggering drunk at frat parties. I’m extrapolating, but I think that’s more or less what Caroline means.
Is that true, though? I know that Facebook started out as just for university students, but the user base has broadened considerably, I would argue. There has been a tremendous response to issues such as the Burmese army attacks, not to mention Iraq and other U.S. issues. Admittedly, people still primarily use Facebook for social purposes, but I don’t think that necessarily precludes there being a political aspect to it as well.
On the other hand, maybe this announcement between Facebook and ABC is just a lot of blather and not much will come of it. Even All Facebook’s Nick O’Neill doesn’t seem to think it amounts to much.
Nov 26th, 2007 | Blogs, Media 2.0 | No Comments
Like my friend, the charming and multi-talented Rachel Sklar of Huffington Post’s Eat The Press I think it’s great that blogger Nikki Finke of LA Weekly is getting her moment in the spotlight — courtesy of the U.S. Writers Guild strike, which Nikki has been covering like white on rice. Both the New York Times and Bloomberg have positive pieces about the blogger and her coverage of the strike.
Deadline Hollywood Daily didn’t just show up yesterday. It’s a daily online version of Ms. Finke’s LA Weekly column, and she’s been writing it since March of last year. It’s published by the Village Voice, which hosts the site and pays her to write it. It’s also interesting to note that the NYT story was written by Brian Stelter, whose TVNewser blog brought him fame and fortune while he was still a student, at which point the NYT hired him as one of their media reporters.
Nov 25th, 2007 | Media 2.0, Social Media | No Comments
Like my friends Mark Evans — who has mentioned it in comments on Rob Hyndman’s post and on TechCrunch — and Tony Hung of DJI, I am puzzled by Mike Arrington’s post on Mixx and how “Digg refugees” are making it their destination of choice. Digg refugees? I must have missed a memo somewhere. I know that there are all kinds of people who regularly get mad at Digg, but I wasn’t aware that there was a mass exodus.
I know that Mike only says that those who are dissatisfied with Digg “may” be heading to Mixx, but he sure makes it sound like a done deal. Why? Who knows. Slow news day in the blogosphere maybe? Mike says that Digg users “are showing an increasing amount of frustration with the Digg community, and many are leaving.” An increasing amount of frustration? That’s news to me too. And are many of the top Diggers really leaving? Mike mentions one: Greg Davies, who is interviewed here.
The only other evidence I can find for what Mike is saying comes from this post, which I can’t help but notice comes from a blog that claims to specialize in “social media SEO.” I’m not saying — I’m just saying. And even that one says that many of the top Diggers mentioned having left Digg, and haven’t even posted anything at Mixx. They’re just “checking it out.” Meanwhile, Mike admits that Mixx’s traffic is virtually zero compared to Digg. Why bother with the post then?
Nov 23rd, 2007 | Media 2.0, Social Media | No Comments
(This is cross-posted from my Globe and Mail blog)
More than a month after Radiohead allowed users to download its latest album and pay whatever amount they wanted for it, debate continues about whether the move was just a stunt — one that only an established band with a dedicated fan base could pull off — or whether it was a viable alternative to the traditional record-label model.
The band has yet to say how many people have downloaded the album or what they paid, but that hasn’t stopped others from experimenting with similar moves. Suburban Home Records, an independent label based in Colorado, recently announced that fans can download a free sampler collection of songs from all the bands represented and distributed by the label — and they can share those songs with whoever they wish.
Meanwhile, a new music site known as RCRD LBL launched this week, founded by Engadget editor Peter Rojas and Josh Deutsch of Downtown Records. The site features songs by a variety of up-and-coming artists, which are provided for free download (without any digital-rights-management restrictions), along with widgets that can be embedded in various blogs and other sites that stream RCRD LBL artists. The venture is completely ad-supported.
Another artist inspired by Radiohead (in addition to The Charlatans, another UK band who released their album for download not long after Radiohead did) was Trent Reznor of the Nine Inch Nails, who recently dumped his record label. Reznor has made a number of comments both at public events and on the band’s website about how he was looking forward to developing a “direct relationship” with his fans, and was also instrumental in getting a record by Saul Williams — a record Reznor produced — released online as a free download.
One of the NIN frontman’s attempts to interact more directly with his fans has been stymied, however — at least for now — by the lawsuits between his former label (Universal Music) and YouTube. As Reznor describes in a recent note on the NIN website, fans have been remixing and reworking his songs for the past couple of years, creating interesting works of their own, and the artist wanted to recognize these efforts by setting up a dedicated site at NIN.com for them to upload their files. Then he got a call from Universal.
The label, which owns the rights to Reznor’s previous works, wouldn’t let him go forward with the project because they are afraid it might jeopardize their lawsuit against YouTube and MySpace. The label is arguing that the two sites don’t have protection under the “safe harbour” clause of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and according to Reznor “Universal feels that if they host our remix site, they will be opening themselves up to the accusation that they are sponsoring the same technical violation of copyright they are suing these companies for.”
