What is citizen media really about?
There's been a little ping-pong this week between Travis Henry from YourHub.com and Steve Outing, formerly of The Enthusiast Group. It was all spurred by Outing's E&P piece about what he learned after his plans around participatory sports media didn't work out as well as he'd hoped. He mentioned YourHub in the middle, which caused some other bloggers to assume that YourHub is a failure (which Henry rightly points out is alive and growing).
I don't really want to get into the middle of the personal disagreement between these two smart people (although I think they made up, as Travis just publicly invited Outing to beers), but I do find it a little sad that so many other bloggers with journalism backgrounds used it to mash up fact and opinion at such breakneck speeds.
Henry points out a few examples of this in his blog entry. That's way more embarrassing to the field of journalism than the alleged lower quality of "citizen journalism." It also bothers me that almost four years after The Northwest Voice launched, there are still some people in the traditional journalism field who feel threatened by the idea of regular people writing their own news for their own community.
So let me just recap what I've been saying all week. "The rumors of citizen journalism's death are greatly exaggerated!"
After Outing's column came out, I also received some inquiries into whether The Bakersfield Californian's citizen media efforts plan to shut down (let's all pile on, shall we?) And like Henry, I also responded in kind by pointing to the facts about our profitable print ad business tied to The Northwest Voice.
I also shared some thoughts about why online-only citizen media ventures are having more trouble than online-print combos. In my opinion, the challenges of the Enthusiasts, Backfence and other online-only players have nothing to do with the value proposition of citizen media to consumers, who can't get enough of it. It has everything to do with how hard it is to get local niche businesses to advertise online.
Niche products appeal to smaller businesses that aren't as tech-savvy as national buyers. For this reason, a lot of online-only startups that are focused on topical and geographic niches may be ahead of the market in terms of what local advertisers are ready for. The best thing about a print product like The Northwest Voice and YourHub is that advertisers relate to it and buy ad space, and that's what Backfence and others were missing. In another five years that may not be the case and everyone will buy online ads first, which are cheaper and more targeted. But it is unfortunately today's reality. It would be truly unfortunate if an entire industry abandoned the idea of regular people taking local media by the reigns simply because the online business model is still being developed.
Henry also talked about how annoyed he is at the peanut gallery of "citizen journalism experts" who increasingly look more like Luddites and prophets of doom. I have to agree here. The only people who I would consider close to being experts in this area are core contributors in citizen media products. They challenge most of our assumptions about the kind of local information people want and need to know, and what they value about citizen media that they're not getting elsewhere.
The truth is that citizen media is something new and different. It overlaps a little with "Big J" Journalism, but mostly meets different needs that have long been ignored by big media companies. At a fundamental level, I don't think these services are really about "journalism" in the minds of the people who use them. They're really about connecting small groups of people who have shared interests, goals, geography and world views. And they're about giving people a voice and a seat at the table in media. People love that, and so do advertisers when they're aware of it.
"Success" or "failure" in this field should be measured first by how much community participation you spur from your target market, and then whether you can harness that into a profitable enterprise that is self-sustaining. Everything else, including opinions about the caliber of journalism in citizen media products, is moot.
Technorati Tags:
Citizen Journalism, 
Your Hub, 
Steve Outing, 
Travis Henry, 
Enthusiast Group
I don't really want to get into the middle of the personal disagreement between these two smart people (although I think they made up, as Travis just publicly invited Outing to beers), but I do find it a little sad that so many other bloggers with journalism backgrounds used it to mash up fact and opinion at such breakneck speeds.
Henry points out a few examples of this in his blog entry. That's way more embarrassing to the field of journalism than the alleged lower quality of "citizen journalism." It also bothers me that almost four years after The Northwest Voice launched, there are still some people in the traditional journalism field who feel threatened by the idea of regular people writing their own news for their own community.
So let me just recap what I've been saying all week. "The rumors of citizen journalism's death are greatly exaggerated!"
After Outing's column came out, I also received some inquiries into whether The Bakersfield Californian's citizen media efforts plan to shut down (let's all pile on, shall we?) And like Henry, I also responded in kind by pointing to the facts about our profitable print ad business tied to The Northwest Voice.
I also shared some thoughts about why online-only citizen media ventures are having more trouble than online-print combos. In my opinion, the challenges of the Enthusiasts, Backfence and other online-only players have nothing to do with the value proposition of citizen media to consumers, who can't get enough of it. It has everything to do with how hard it is to get local niche businesses to advertise online.
Niche products appeal to smaller businesses that aren't as tech-savvy as national buyers. For this reason, a lot of online-only startups that are focused on topical and geographic niches may be ahead of the market in terms of what local advertisers are ready for. The best thing about a print product like The Northwest Voice and YourHub is that advertisers relate to it and buy ad space, and that's what Backfence and others were missing. In another five years that may not be the case and everyone will buy online ads first, which are cheaper and more targeted. But it is unfortunately today's reality. It would be truly unfortunate if an entire industry abandoned the idea of regular people taking local media by the reigns simply because the online business model is still being developed.
Henry also talked about how annoyed he is at the peanut gallery of "citizen journalism experts" who increasingly look more like Luddites and prophets of doom. I have to agree here. The only people who I would consider close to being experts in this area are core contributors in citizen media products. They challenge most of our assumptions about the kind of local information people want and need to know, and what they value about citizen media that they're not getting elsewhere.
The truth is that citizen media is something new and different. It overlaps a little with "Big J" Journalism, but mostly meets different needs that have long been ignored by big media companies. At a fundamental level, I don't think these services are really about "journalism" in the minds of the people who use them. They're really about connecting small groups of people who have shared interests, goals, geography and world views. And they're about giving people a voice and a seat at the table in media. People love that, and so do advertisers when they're aware of it.
"Success" or "failure" in this field should be measured first by how much community participation you spur from your target market, and then whether you can harness that into a profitable enterprise that is self-sustaining. Everything else, including opinions about the caliber of journalism in citizen media products, is moot.
Technorati Tags:
Citizen Journalism, Your Hub, Steve Outing, Travis Henry, Enthusiast GroupLabels: citizen journalism, Enthusiast Group, your hub
posted by Dan at
12/05/2007 04:10:00 PM
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