Monthly Archives: April 2008

Networked journalism – the viable face of citizen journalism

Citizen journalism websites can’t survive according to a post by journalism.co.uk’s John Ndege, the founder of start-up ScribbleSheet.

Instead, Networked Journalism sites which integrate users into their professional set up have more than a fighting chance. Why? Because they provide the collaborative appeal of CJ websites, while retaining the quality of professional publications. Read more about Networked Journalism at Buzzmachine.

Read John’s full post on journalism.co.uk

Is being the CEO of Second Life really a “career killer”?

I always read make time to George’s i-boy blog, but I’ll admit I’ve never seen anything as so damning as his latest post, which talks about Mark Kingdon’s move from CEO of digital agency Organic to CEO of Linden Lab, the owner of Second Life.

Sure, there’s been a strong reaction to Kingdon’s move on Linden’s own site (which i-boy has helpfully published), but George himself is just as scathing. Check out the multiple choice options!

Take a look for yourself at i-boy.

Business Week invests in citizen journalism and user engagement

Well, peel me like a beetroot and pickle me in brine – a publisher has woken up to the value of developing long term relationships with blog post commenters.
Backed up by a dedicated strategy and senior member of staff, prime commenters are to be cultivated and paid (yes, paid) to not only write articles, but also take part in wider news production. Hello user centred design!
I’m also excited aboout this content strategy because it has a good chance of taking off, thanks to the calibre of the commenters they’re looking to work with – namely high profile CEOs and directors. Users will actively seek out their content. B2B publishers should take note, as should consumer media owners: citizen journalism doesn’t begin and end with the Guardian’s Comment is Free.
Read more about Business Week’s citizen journalism content strategy [via paidContent]

Shiny Media’s gadget blog takes on Fark’s frat boys

Shiny Media’s gadget site for laides ShinyShiny has been the subject of flash mob rule (see what I did there?) by commenters from the Fark website.

I’ll hold off publishing some of the comments and simply link to ShinyShiny’s reponse article, but the posts have some of the most scathing blog post comments I’ve seen in a long time (…a week).

FT.com web strategy – assuming the site isn’t down

Ien Cheng, publisher and managing editor, reveals in today’s Guardian that publishers should act more like tech firms than publishers.
Not sure what that means when the FT.com site doesn’t load and returns a ‘Cannot find server’ in the browser (as of 10.35am this morning).

Blips aside, Cheng appears to be working wonders by focusing on three strands (or ‘prongs’ if you’re Jemima Kiss). These include new products, subscription models and internal production. It seems to be working – a 33 per cent rise in users from last year to 7.1 million uniques a month.

The report also details strong growth in online advertising (40 per cent – helped by highly targeted ads) and an 11 per cent growth in online subscriptions (over 10,000 users are signing up each week). Hats off to web agency Avenue A Razorfish?

The nod to new products suggests that the FT.com – like the Telegraph and, more recently the Daily Mirror – could benefit from an internal web development team.

He also shrugs off any threat from Google and their strength in the new, more open marketplace. But I’ve always believed that specialist publishers, including the ‘niche’ business audiences of the FT and WSJ, were relatively safe from the advertising giant. More so than the Mirror or the Sun.

Impressive stuff nonetheless.