I haven't had time to digest this new Jeff Jarvis post admonishing media companies to "become to network," but I have been thinking about the idea. Reading his previous posts and recent, related items about Glam, are provocative. This is worth thinking about, especially where we're particularly advantaged: local geographic regions.
Jeff says:
Google grew by building a network. So did Glam. I say that is a model for survival and growth among media companies. Local newspapers, for example, should be building hyperlocal networks of local blogs; with them, they can expand coverage and reach in ways that were never possible when they depended only on staff.
A different example, from the realm of science and academia:
ReplyDeletehttp://scienceblogs.com/channel/about.php
Each blogger has a badge that links to the bigger network.
Don't say, "We don't need no stinking badges." I'm beginning to think they'd be a good idea.
As a blogger and a journalist, i think networks and others like Glam provide a sort of community that bloggers otherwise do not have and journalists survive on. As a journalist, I can turn to my colleagues for contacts insight, etc, but as a blogger, without a network, I'd have no partnership, no support, no one to bounce ideas off of.
ReplyDeleteI think it's also comforting to readers to see a site's badge or memberships and know that you're looking at a Glam, b5, FM or Gawker site and you know where they are coming from. Blog networks have personalities that I'm not sure newspapers have, yet.
Here's an example of newspaper building the network:
ReplyDeleteblognetwork.knoxnews.com