I’m a big fan of Mark Potts – even if his ‘We were on the right track, just ran out of track…’ line still haunts my every move.
His latest blog post on the fate of the ‘Whoville Bugle’ is excellent; and the likely media eco-system that might replace it…
The comment from WorkingReporter is even better; it gets right to the heart of where we need to get to – working out how to reward the content creators; where is the value in what we do…
“Forget about newspaper vs blog vs web site vs citizen media. These labels are irrelevant. The important players in the media ecosystem are: content gatherer; content aggregator; content analyzer; content user.
“Of all the media entities you describe, only one — the Whoville Bugle — is a significant content creator…
That line is worth repeating: “The important players in the media ecosystem are: content gatherer; content aggregator; content analyzer; content user…
And it starts to touch upon the roads that David Cushman treads with his thoughts on conversations and camp-fires – http://fasterfuture.blogspot.com/2008/08/networked-world-can-make-brands-more.html – that perhaps all we as content-gatherers can every hope to do – and that includes, in particular, the baseball, basketball and hockey ‘beat’ writers on the hapless Whoville Bugle – is spark informed conversations among the passionate niche communities that now proliferate in Whoville suburbia…
We’re not so much content-gatherers as conversation-sparkers…
http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=119
But, nevertheless, for us to spark such conversations – to be able to deliver something new and cool to our camp-fire audience on, ideally, a regular basis – we have to have that regular access to near-private conversations.
The sort of near-private conversations you get in a locker room, in a post-match Press conference… the near-private conversations you only get beyond the gatekeepers…
http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=53
And for being that welcomed spark, we need a reward.
Which is why, time and again, I come back to the work of Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Martin Moore and their forthcoming application with all that lovely, Knight lolly…
http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=73
Because somewhere within that proposition ought to lie a reward structure; that – in theory – I can now be seen by the Web to have the dirt under my finger-nails; to have this proof-positive that I was the one that went to the content coalface and returned to the camp-fire with something cool for my passionate niche community to discuss…
All I do then is let them endlessly chew that chunk of ‘news’ over, as I return back to the coalface in search of another near-private conversation for my camp-fire audience to digest and savour.
Only now – because my ‘audience’ can see that my offering comes with a ‘certificate’ attached – I have more chance of being welcomed at the camp-fire; more chance of being rewarded for my genuine content offering.
That’s got to be the hope; that there is a reward mechanism for those us left trying to get our music heard in the wall of noise that is the Web.
Do that – find that reward; that means to sustain our journalistic life – and the food chain is sustained. Aggregate me all you like; talk about me all you like; feed off me to your heart’s content.
That’s fine. Because I’m alive and I’ve found a means to be rewarded…
One Comment
Part of understanding the new creation of value is to see it in terms of evolutionary webs of value, rather than traditional chains.
In this I am all for reward for hard work, and the sparker of the conversation should be rewarded. But we must also acknowledge the immense value that explodes from that spark.
The gas in the room is valuable too.