eastwikkers

More Social Media

Steve Rubel has again called for the elimination of the label “social media.” And again I’ll disagree.

Rubel’s underlying premise is right:

“The fact is that everyone who is contributing to the dialogue - be it in video, text or photos - has earned the right to be called media.”

But I disagree with his rationale for eliminating the label:

“It’s like we’re a separate entity from the rest of the so-called “mainstream” journalists, filmmakers, photographers, etc. who do what we do and get paid more for it. We sit in a special dish like leftover meatloaf so we need a special name. If you use these phrases you're unintentionally perpetuating that myth.”

First of all, mainstream media and much of the public love (or have finally embraced) the social media phenomenon, so the “special dish” is clearly in the main course and there’s nothing “leftover” about it.

More important, we need the label to understand the phenomenon. We come to understand new things by looking at something we already understand (mainstream media) and explaining the differences (the social elements). For this reason, Rubel admits that “the phrases were helpful as the world began to take notice. But now, it’s different. We’ve arrived.” Well, Rubel has arrived. Mainstream media, Silicon Valley, and millions of people around the world have also arrived. But not everyone, and we certainly are not finished understanding how this arrival is changing the world. Imagine trying to write about how media is changing today without using “social media.” It can’t be done. The label is not a buzzword, and it will disappear from current usage slowly. And it will take up permanent residence in history books.

Meanwhile, I propose satisfying Rubel (I hope) by stating clearly that he and all bloggers are part of the media, without any limiting modifier. But I insist on saying that he got there by being very smart about and being a leader in the development of social media.

Useless Searches

From InfoWorld, an interesting but not surprising study from Accenture:

“In a survey of 1,000 middle managers at large companies in the U.S. and U.K., Accenture found that managers spend as long as two hours a day searching for information and more than half of the data they find has no value to them.”

But wait, isn’t “search” old news? Think about all we’ve read over the last couple of years about desktop search, centralizing information, new forms of collaboration. Then read:

* “Fifty-seven percent of those polled said that having to go to numerous sources to collect information makes managing data difficult.”

* “Forty percent of respondents said that other parts of their companies aren't willing to share information.”

* “Only 16 percent of managers said they store valuable data in a collaborative workplace, like an intranet portal.”

* “Just less than half – 42 percent – of those surveyed said that they accidentally use the wrong information at least once a week.”

It just goes to show that writing about a technology, even writing a lot about it, and even having all sorts of predictions about how it will take the world by storm, doesn’t mean that companies are implementing it. And even if they implement it, there’s no guarantee users will adopt it.

As we work through this latest prediction season, and as new (and often truly useful) technologies are unleashed, let’s keep in mind that many of us are early adopters, or at least early wannabe adopters, or early adopters in assessment, and that the rest of the world is just trying to make it through the day without falling too much further behind.

Wikia’s Openserving: A Business Without a Model

You’ve got to love the honesty of Wikia’s CEO Gil Penchina on plans to launch openserving.com to provide free hosting of wiki-based collaborative websites:

“If we give away the bandwidth and the storage, and we get none of the advertising revenue, what's the business model? Well, I don't know yet.”

Wika just received additional funding from Amazon.com Inc., and I wonder how the investors are responding to the comment. But if it’s experiments we want, then this is a good one. It’s an opportunity for individuals or small groups who otherwise couldn’t to launch a content venture that might make some money and get some notoriety. It will be interesting to watch the adoption here. How much value? How much noise?  And will a sustainable business model follow?

The End As We Know It?

Last week, law professor Eric Goldman reiterated his prediction that “the very architecture of Wikipedia contains the seeds of its own destruction,” and that it will fail in four years due to the fact that “as Wikipedia traffic grows, it becomes a juicier target for marketers seeking to promote themselves” and “Wikipedia will enter a death spiral where the rate of junkiness will increase rapidly until the site becomes a wasteland.”

A lot of speculation and guesswork accompany the argument, but a marginalization of Wikipedia is certainly possible – sooner or later than four years and not necessarily as a result of marketers. It’s easy to forget that as entrenched in our psyches as Wikipedia is, it’s still very much an experiment in social media – along with Myspace.com, Second Life, YouTube, and many others – played out on a very large scale.

Myspace has its issues with predators and whether or not it can remain hip as monetization and regulation set in. Second Life has its woes with vandals as Don Clark notes in Virtual Vandalism on Second Life. And YouTube is still a phenomenon searching for an identity.

There’s always the possibility that one or more of these implodes from a variety of reasons having to do with technology or community, or witnesses the rise of a competing platform (remember CompuServe?) – some next big thing that draws current fans onto a grander adventure.

The demise of a popular social media site in favor of a replacement or because the community model can’t be sustained should not be surprising. We are very much at the beginning of these experiments and we have much to learn as both providers and users.

Trust and Deception

In 2003, the prescient William Gibson published Pattern Recognition, a novel about a group obsessing over and trying to discover the source of some mysterious video clips trickling out onto the Internet. This year, the Lonely Girl video series appeared on YouTube, causing a similar frenzy and turning out to be the work of a screenwriter, filmmaker, and hired actress. We also had the fake Wal-Mart blog and the fake Beer Ape commercial.  And the Jason Fortuny and Craigslist episode – publishing the responses to a fake personals ad – raised further questions about credibility, deception, privacy and abuse on the net.

So how long before algorithm-controlled deceptions actually destroy a company or bring down a candidate – or get one elected? In a world where you can’t believe what you read or watch, how do we make informed decisions? 

Even in pre-Internet/pre-digital photo days, documents and photos could be faked, personal information could be stolen, and private letters could be photocopied and passed around to create a scandal. And a well-placed lie could always be spread to harm candidates and companies. We used to trust (not always with good reason) our local newspaper editors and favorite newscasters to sort out the truth, and brick-and-mortar stores that had longevity not to cheat us.

But today, the problem is on a much larger scale, much faster, and more complicated. So now we seek trusted sources on the net.  Many of us rely on the online versions of our trusted off-line resources for both news and shopping. But how do we develop trust in valuable online resources, from auction and travel sites to bloggers, that have no offline equivalents?

Does it depend on personal time spent and testing the waters? Does it come from the type of community formed? Word-of-mouth? How have you developed trust? We’re curious. Let us know.

New Media Nerds to Descend Upon Boston

I hope that title won’t turn any of you off, I am happy to admit that I will be part of that mob in Boston next month for the Society for New Communications Research’s Inaugural SNCR Research Symposium. 

Paul Gillin, tech journalist veteran and social media pro, will be delivering the keynote.  Paul will be discussing how the “New Influencers” are disrupting media and markets.  I’ve been thinking a lot about these new Web 2.0 gods and where they fit into the ecosystem of PR and media.  Are these new heavyweights (c’mon, you know who I’m talking about… Do you want me to recite the litany? Okay then, let’s start with one variation on the Trinity -- Om Malik, Michael Arrington, and Scoble -- and leave it at that … for now) really the Barbarians at the Gate of the stuffy, paralyzed world of “old media” or are they just repackaged media élites, as guided by their own tastes as any cigar-chomping editor in a dusty newsroom (actually, it appears that Om is also partial to cigars).

As John Gapper wrote last month in a great Financial Times piece:

“While anyone is free to launch a blog, contribute to Wikipedia or publish photographs on Flickr, a relatively small number of activists often dominate proceedings on Web 2.0 sites. Although they are unpaid, they can nonetheless achieve an elite status reminiscent of the old media's professional gatekeepers.”

So, we’ll see what Paul and other participants in the SNCR have to say about this. 

Other things I’ll be interested in hearing that day: Rob Pongsajapan of Georgetown University (my alma mater) will be moderating a panel on the “Emergence of Blogging in University Admissions and Recruiting.” 

Finally, eastwikkers alum (and a SNCR Research Fellow) Giovanni Rodriguez will be discussing his work on the 33 wikis project (started here on eastwikkers).  Can’t wait to hear what Giovanni’s got for us.

Personal Media and DIY Cinema

Recently, we have explored do-it-yourself citizen journalism, video blogs and what this means for the “traditional” fact-checking/filtering aspect of reporting… but what about the recent momentum of do-it-yourself cinema (think YouTube and IFILM)?

Seems that many have taken YouTube’s “Broadcast Yourself” tagline to heart, uploading and sharing videos of all that is random and unusual - dancing cats, people flossing and eating paste (though not at the same time), and “Friends heading to Modesto from Fresno.” In fact, people are watching more than 50 million videos on the site daily!  And on a personal note, I have found the site to be a valuable resource for locating 80s sitcom themes, classic TV commercials and rare concert clips from music acts. And let’s not forget homemade spoofs to all the above.

Many of the videos, however, use copyrighted songs and materials (flashback: Napster). Check out this LA Times article, that details how some labels are looking to turn online video “into a profit center.” “The gap between people who create and those who consume is closing fast.” Indeed. And USA Today discusses “personal media” and what this may mean for advertising and mass media. Stay tuned.

Business Models Versus Role Models

I moderated a New Communications Forum panel yesterday on the topic of new business models for online publishing.   I agree with panelist Tom Foremski's assessment that there are no business models yet ... it's too early, and we're at a stage of experimentation.  But there are new businesses, and some of them are doing quite well. 

Colin Crawford, senior vp of online for IDG, is helping to transform a number of print properties into profitable online properties, using a variety of leading-edge tools such as vertical search, communities, and lead-generation programs for its B2B readers.   Francois Gossieaux, president of Corante, gave a brilliant overview of the many experiments the blog network has conducted, as well as some of Corante's guiding principles (key = "subscribe to the person," not the content).  Chris Alden, CEO at Rojo, spoke about how his company is enabling publishers to stay connected with readers with sophisticated uses of syndication (RSS with mojo, as he likes to say).

So, maybe there are no business models -- after all, you can only model when there is a templated idea that can easily be replicated -- but a number of online publishers are succeeding, and we can certainly think of them as role models.  Look for the common themes -- experimentation, innovation, community -- and see what we can learn.

Yahoo is Groupwise

Sez Business Week.  Yep -- we saw this one coming.

Long Tail for Film?

One of the biggest surprises at this year's Consumer Electronics Show is just how many Hollywood stars have shown up to (a) tout the wares of tech vendors, and (b) to confirm the entertainment industry's embrace of new business models.  Morgan Freeman was among them yesterday, describing a near future when more creative projects go forward because of the lower barriers to production and distribution.  It's kind of a long tail argument.   Good for the industry?  We'll see.  Box office revenue was down in 2005, by seven percent -- other distribution channels (e.g., direct-to- home) are looking very attractive.

PR University -- Continued

Interesting day yesterday at the SF Hilton and Towers.  Big stars of the event were Craig Newmark of craigslist, and a panel of podcasters who made a pretty persuasive case for the technology, particularly it's easy-of-use.  Craig's best line was a set-up:  "I apologize for not being amusing enough," after paraphrasing Oscar Wilde earlier in the bit, "if you want to tell the truth, make them laugh, because otherwise they will kill you."  The audience didn't kill Craig for telling the truth (i.e., that PR will undergo a transformation).  In fact, a few lined up for photos, which Craig willingly obliged, though no one seems to have flickr'd.  Afterwards, we retired to the hotel lounge where we grilled speaker/podcaster/one-man-brand Eric Rice on a whole bunch of issues, and the man debated so admirably -- with a table of semi-jaded PR pros -- we were in awe.   

PR U

I'm speaking today at a couple of panels at Bulldog Reporter's PR University at the Hilton & Towers in San Francisco. Topic: new media, and I'm planning to introduce -- for the second time this week -- an idea we've been brewing throughout the summer at Eastwick: that the endgame of new media is collaboration, and that in the next year we will see a number of interesting experiments in community building using lightweight new-media tools. That will place a significant premium on hard knowledge of the social rules that are taking hold on Internet communities. We've submitted a short article on this subject to Global PR Blog Week and will launch a wiki next week to begin developing and vetting those rules with the PR and greater business communities. In the meantime, here are twelve rules we are submitting for review:

Twelve: be inclusive

Eleven: be open

Ten: Be purposeful with your technology

Nine: Focus on values, not selling

Eight: Don’t be groupwise/self-foolish

Seven: Leverage the wisdom of crowds

Six: Wag the “long tail”

Five: Use community to build consensus

Four: integrate the offline community into the technology. We’re calling this the Reeses principle (80’s commercial: “your peanut butter is in my chocolate … your chocolate is in my peanut butter)”

Three: integrate the technology into the offline community (the Reeses principle, part II)

Two: replicate the entire ideal social structure online … if you can

One: Because we are playing in a social world, aim for the big social causes

New World/Old World -- It Will All Be the Same

An idea we've been batting around at Eastwick has gotten a bit of attention in the last few days.  Simply put:  the success of online social experiments will force vendors to apply what they've learned to the offline world.  First we got Google maps -- the satellite edition, which literally enables Google to crawl the earth (we've always wondered if this was, in part, a PR move, signalling the direction for this company in a most surprising way).  And now we're hearing about tech companies that are helping parents to locate and monitor their teens.  And, as Jupiter's Gary Stein writes in his blog, Google is beginning to experiment with ways to apply its ad-serving technology -- the financial engine of its incredible growth -- to the print world.  And why not?  The print-ad market is much larger than the world that Google serves, and Google needs to grow.

We have our own take on what's happening here, and we will discuss it at length this Fall, here, here, here, and here (yes, we are trying our best to get the word out).  In the meantime, we'd like to float this idea: the success of the great social experiments in the new, online world (and they are, in fact, social experiments) is beginning to pay off in exports to the old world.  This new world/old world analogy came to us yesterday; we credit the semi-patriotic, bittersweet mood (homage to a more progressive, but difficult, era) that always seems to dominate this weekend. 

Happy Labor Day.  See you back in the old world, tomorow.

MSN Filter

We saw this one coming a mile away.  MSN has introduced a new service called Filter, where bloggers separate (i.e., "filter") the wheat from the chaff, based on user suggestions.  Filter is a fitting metaphor for the post-TiVo age, where  users -- for better or worse -- have greater control over what they listen to, watch, and read.  But we're wondering if the folks at MSN got this one wrong, at least from a new-media perspective.  Why should users get excited about delegating the job of filtering to someone else?  Don't we have that model for info management already?  Stay tuned ... other ideas are fast approaching.

Posner to Media Consumers: "You Can't Handle the Truth"

See Richard Posner's roundup of eight -- count 'em -- recent books on the media in this week's issue of The New York Times Book Review (the cover story).  For those of you old enough to remember, Posner is the fabled and prolific conservative academic/jurist (he sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, and is a lecturer at the University of Chicago School of Law) who has led the "law and economics" movement since the dawn of the Reagan era.  Posner and others have used L&E to do battle with many longstanding laws and precedents, interposing the economic cost/benefit analysis as the basis for deciding all manner of legal dispute.   He's applying a similar economic lens today to the media scene, arguing that negative trends like sensationalism (think Michael Jackson) and polarization (think Fox, talking heads, and angry bloggers) are the result of "the vertiginous decline in the cost of electronic communication and the relaxation of regulatory barriers to entry, leading to the proliferation of consumer choices."   But greater choice hasn't created a competitive market for truth and accuracy, says Posner.  "[P]eople don't like being in a state of doubt, so they look for information that will support rather than undermine their existing beliefs. They're also uncomfortable seeing their beliefs challenged on issues that are bound up with their economic welfare, physical safety or religious and moral views."  It's like a page from George Lakoff -- people generally prefer to listen to what fits their views, filtering out the rest. 

A proponent of new media -- see the article for a lengthy and passionate defense of bloggers against charges from mainstream journalists -- Posner himself is a blogger, sharing a site with University of Chicago economist Gary Becker.

UPDATE, 8/1:  Fellow PR blogger Elizabeth Albrycht writes that Posner's analysis has dangerous assumptions.  Meanwhile, Slate's Jack Schafer accuses the professor of laziness, sloppiness, and verbosity ("[d]eploying four words where one will do....").

infoTalk by Podtech.net

Riding the podcasting wave is technology authority John Furrier and his neat franchise called infoTalk. Furrier has assembled some of the biggest and brightest stars of Silicon Valley and recorded about 75 intriguing and insightful interviews to date. The Podtech.net website allows visitors to either download the infoTalk interviews in mp3 format or listen to them right from the site. It appears that the interviews are also available through iTunes.  Furrier ranked the top ten infoTalk podcasts from last week on his personal blog with Mark Cuban's interview at #1 on the list.

Open Media 100 List

AlwaysOn and Technorati have joined forces to to present the first annual "Open Media 100,"  a power list of bloggers, social networkers, tool smiths, and investors leading the Open Media Revolution. Kudos to our partner and client Ross Mayfield of Socialtext for making the list.

Tagging On the Web

As Anick Jesdanun of the Associated Press points out in his article this week, tagging is "all the rage among the digerati" and we couldn't agree more. This new cataloging methodology really brings forth a new way for people to archive and retrieve important content very quickly. Moreover, it can be applied to a number of areas in the digital world, some that have not presented themselves yet. Eastwikkers will be watching this trend very closely.

Podcasts For the Masses

San Francisco's KYCY looks to be the first public radio station to broadcast podcast streams according to a press release issued today. A member of the Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, KYCY will dump its current talk radio format and rebrand as KYOURADIO. KYCY-AM will be streamed online at http://www.kyouradio.com beginning on Monday, May 16.

FreeNews Offers Mobile News

Thanks to Robin Good for pointing out FreeNews, a new mobile RSS news service offered by FreeRange. Apparently, most wireless phones that read Java VM will be able to run the FreeNews service to retrieve RSS feeds.

Social Bookmarking Analyzed

One of the biggest trends happens to be social bookmarking or the public online collection of personal website bookmarks. This can be witnessed by the growing use of bookmarking tools like the ever popular del.icio.us, which recently received a nice injection of funding from a star-studded group of investors.

To learn more about the origins and future of social bookmarking, we urge you to visit D-Lib Magazine, a journal of digital library research and development produced by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). There's a 2-part series with PART 1 focusing on a general overview and PART 2 being a case study done on Connotea, a free online reference management and social bookmarking service for scientists .

The Annotated New York Times

Fascinating experiment in wikis and citizen journalism (sort of).

New Citizen Journalism Project

Thanks to Dan Gillmor for posting about this. Rocky Mountain News describes the project:

YourHub is exactly that: Yours!

It's a Web site built by the people in metro Denver with help from the Rocky Mountain News. This May, people throughout metro Denver will be able to access their own community's YourHUB.com Web site, featuring stories, photos and events posted by others in their community -- that means you!

Each site will also include easy connections to local resources and updated daily events, creating a lively information hub that's focused where you live.

Come back to this Web site in May to get connected with your community Hub.

Blog Consolidation

Tom Foremski notes that although the number of blogs keeps growing, only a few wield influence, making it easier for people to influence the "conversation." We respectfully disagree. Yes, there is and has been blog consolidation -- and it's a trend that we've been trying to encourage -- but for most new-media participants the opportunity to influence exists not on the uber-blogs but in the smaller spheres of specific influence created by the long tail of content on the Internet.

Someone asked me the other day, "who are the top bloggers," and I of course had to answer, "depends on who you are trying to influence." It's like cable television -- we're learning to serve many different audiences, on many channels.

Yahoo! 360 -- More Social than Bloggy

Full disclosure: we represent a company that partners with all the major search vendors, but we will provide a fair and honest appraisal of our brief experience with Yahoo! 360.

A mini review: we think it's an interesting development in the search giant's quest to develop a comprehensive set of tools for connecting people with content. As the most content-rich of the major search providers, Yahoo is smart to move in this direction. The question is, will 360 pull in enough traffic to make this social software/blogging experiment work? Our brief experience with 360 tells us that Yahoo! may succeed by providing value on the left side of the parenthesis: "social software." The right side, "blogging," does not need another tool, and 360! adds little functionality to become a standout (as many blogger reviewers have noted). But 360 may thrive where social software pure plays have not, by offering participants -- ta dah -- more content to share, discuss, debate. From a broader perspective, Yahoo! 360 may be an early example of convergence in new media, as the recent Gilbane report on new media predicted. Next steps? Yahoo! might add more functionality to the social side and integrate more content into the collaborative mix.

But Will We Wear Them on Our Wrists?

New York Times reporter/blogger David Pogue posted today about cell phones replacing wrist watches. For many years, we've all had the option of trashing our watches in favor of cell phones, which can all tell time. But the recent threat may stem from the fact that cell phones today are almost always on and within reach.

The World is Flat

...says Thomas Friedman, in a New York Times Magazine article on globalization. Friedman examines how various forces have created a "platform for collaboration" that is helping to make the world a level playing field.

This has been building for a long time. Globalization 1.0 (1492 to 1800) shrank the world from a size large to a size medium, and the dynamic force in that era was countries globalizing for resources and imperial conquest. Globalization 2.0 (1800 to 2000) shrank the world from a size medium to a size small, and it was spearheaded by companies globalizing for markets and labor. Globalization 3.0 (which started around 2000) is shrinking the world from a size small to a size tiny and flattening the playing field at the same time. And while the dynamic force in Globalization 1.0 was countries globalizing and the dynamic force in Globalization 2.0 was companies globalizing, the dynamic force in Globalization 3.0 -- the thing that gives it its unique character -- is individuals and small groups globalizing. Individuals must, and can, now ask: where do I fit into the global competition and opportunities of the day, and how can I, on my own, collaborate with others globally? But Globalization 3.0 not only differs from the previous eras in how it is shrinking and flattening the world and in how it is empowering individuals. It is also different in that Globalization 1.0 and 2.0 were driven primarily by European and American companies and countries. But going forward, this will be less and less true. Globalization 3.0 is not only going to be driven more by individuals but also by a much more diverse -- non-Western, nonwhite -- group of individuals. In Globalization 3.0, you are going to see every color of the human rainbow take part.

Stretching the Boundaries of RSS

eWeek reports that Bloglines -- now an AskJeeves property -- is "offering the ability to track packages shipped through United Parcel Service Inc., FedEx Corp. and the U.S. Postal Service." "RSS is a very powerful technology, and we continue to enjoy the fact that more and more RSS information is available," said Mark Fletcher, general manager of Bloglines.

Threadwatch.org

We recently stumbled upon Threadwatch.org and found it to be a good example of a community blog in action. Content appears to be focused on all kinds of marketing, be it mobile marketing, search marketing or just business information.

Pol Blogs

The Christian Science Monitor reports how a growing number of politicians are using blogs as "cyberspace soap boxes."  What began in the world of corporate marketing is now happening in politics --blogs dedicated to "unfiltered" talks with their constituents.  [BTW, Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown groks TypePad.]   

[Politicians] are beginning to see blogs are more than forums for snoops. To some, they are the ultimate cyberspace soapbox. United States Rep. Ray Cox of Minnesota was the first major politician to start a blog, according to the Pew Project, and the prime minister of Japan has one. "It enriches the conversation and provides a forum for an exchange of ideas that - for a public official - is very useful," says Oakland's Mayor Brown.

Citizen Journalism -- New Venture

It's called NowPublic, a site that enables anyone "to assign" a story to participating photographers and videographers. Sounds like a boon to art-constrained news organizations. Here's how it works:

First, a member logs in and opens an assignment. Once the assignment is opened, it appears on the homepage of all members (provided they are logged in) in the area. Once they have filed a photograph, video or MP3, then the assignment becomes a news story and appears in the developing news section and within the appropriate channels.

Yahoo Gets Flickr

It's the latest acquisition for a company that's been steadily growing a long tail of Internet content. And it was the talk of the town in Scottsdale today, day one of PC Forum 2005.

Meeting the Promise of the Collaborative Web

At a Thursday conference in Finland, Web progenitor Tim Berners-Lee bemoaned the fact that his original vision for the Web -- a "resource for collaboration" -- has not yet been realized. But he had enthusiastic words for wikis. "Wikis in general are great examples of how people want to be creative and not just suck in information."

Fondness for Attention.xml

An intriguing version of XML called Attention.xml is causing a stir in PR circles, as well as in the developer communities. Born from the brain trust of Technorati, Attention.xml sets out to be a very reliable system for the organization and consumption of online feeds. It moves towards using common aggregators to provide "community viewing" and does away with feed overload. Privacy advocates will herald the open source code for its "own your own data" philosophy while everyone will benefit from the automated feed management features it will bring.

See Top 5 Posts of Attention.xml for a closer look.

User-Focused Biz Tech

See Rob Hof's post today on the BusinessWeek Tech Beat blog.  He talks about "creating software without software," a not-so-far-out concept that companies like Salesforce.com are advancing.  But this is part of an even larger trend that's pushing software companies to rethink whom they are designing for, whom they are selling to, and what business they are in (software? Web-based services?).  One thing's for sure:  software companies see bigger opportunities for businesses that are modeled around "use."

Everyone is a Marketer

Kim Cameron, a leading thinker on digital identity, asks:

So just as blogging transforms who is involved in journalism, might it not also transform who is involved in marketing?  Not by marginalizing people ... but by allowing more of us to participate, such that the relationship between customers and product development becomes more unmediated?

Alas, what if you combine this thought with the thesis of Seth Godin's new book?  All the more reason to educate everyone in our organizations about the virtues of transparency.

Blogs to Consolidate Into Groups?

In part II of an article on PR and blogging, Tom Foremski discusses the value of the blogger brand as both reporters and PR bloggers learn build up their credentials.  He also sees a trend toward group blogging -- as we've begun predicting here -- as the blogosphere starts to consolidate.

Individual bloggers have to build their media brand, just like the traditional media, and that takes time.

Negative and positive comments made by bloggers carry little weight either way—until a blogger establishes their credentials, their media brand. And that is a long process requiring a lot of diligent writing and reporting.

***

Building a personal blogging brand and cultivating a key readership within such an increasingly noisy media landscape will become increasingly difficult for individuals. We will see consolidation as blogs become group blogs and then become fully-fledged online news magazines.