Frank Gruber points to Fred Wilson, who says that MySpace is the “AOL of Blogging.”

Frank, who recently joined AOL in the Product Development area for blogging and RSS, agrees a bit, but I think he neglects to point out the most important point that Fred brings up.

It’s something I’ve been saying about MySpace for a while and it’s very relevant to Tribune (where Frank and I met) and other newspaper and media sites trying to embrace social networking.

The point is, that if MySpace tries to create a walled-garden like AOL did, at some point their users will awaken and the MySpace service will either begin a slow decline, or they will recognize it and open up, like AOL did recently.

And so far, it’s looking like AOL did the right thing.

No Comments »

Jarvis notes the changing role of journalists:

A change of the role of journalists — and their relationship with the public — from owner sof the story to moderators, editors, enablers, and educators.

Networked news is good, but “SharedNews” is better. Well, that’s just a term I coined some time back to talk about two-way RSS or what might be called RSS Groups.

This is where everyone has access to a feed, much like an email or usenet group. It’s a more sophisticated way to structure a group blog, and it can be completely distributed. Check out SkinnyFarm for an example.

I’ll remind Jeff about a post he wrote about SSE , and I commented on it.

If RSS is two-way, like it can be, then networked news collaboration can be taken to a much higher level.

I’m digressing somewhat, because the real issue here is that news organizations must realize they need to approach the conversation from a peer level.

It’s no longer a lecture, where audience members must raise their hand to contribute. It’s one big dinner party, and no-one likes the guy who tries to dominate the conversation.

That’s why Dave Winer is right about exclusivity. There is an implicit understanding that we are all equal on the web, and any attempts to create a class system will fail. Exclusive 2.0 conferences are making the same mistake that the Old Regimes made.

It’s also why the user-generated content strategies of news organizations are driving me nuts.

By it’s nature, it’s treating the site-user as a lesser voice.

It’s as if newspapers think users will feel priveliged to get their stuff on the organization’s website.

While that may be somewhat true for the New York Times, I don’t think the local newspaper in many towns holds that kind of reverence, especially with the younger follks.

Their friends are more impressed with their MySpace page, than with your poorly designed, million dollar content management system.

No Comments »

Marc Canter predicts that five more roach motels will open their doors by Christmas, pressured by the clever Facebook move to offer APIs .

It certainly won’t happen by Christmas, but I’ve pleaded with others involved in product development that the Tribune family of newspaper sites offer APIs, especially as we ramp up aggregation and user-generated content.

If newspapers are serious about getting a piece of the social network pie, which includes photos, blogs and video produced and shared by its users, then they had better think about how they are going to share that content back with the network, or else they will also be one step behind, like MySpace is to Facebook.

1 Comment »

Newsome counters a Jarvis post on Social Networks by saying he is singing to the choir :

As as far as niches go- the entire blogosphere is a niche. The tech blogosphere, where most of us hang out, would be a sub niche. A niche inside a sub-niche is not a niche. It’s a clique. That’s a quotable excerpt that will almost certainly not make its way up the mountain.

I don’t normally subscribe to the A-List argument, but it is true that, as in life, there are cliques in Social Networks.

Some are more enviable than others and some are more open to outside input than others.

But Kent has been linked to nearly a thousand times and I see Doc Searls and Dave Winer in that group.

Between both of my blogs, I’ve been linked to about one-tenth of that amount and linkers have included Jarvis, Searls and Winer.

I think they are doing an excellent job.

So is small the new big?

Yes, but look at it this way. I think it compliments Jarvis’s Law of Open Networks.
The Law of Network Fluidity: The number of working affinity groups within a social network should increase proportionately with its number of nodes. All nodes must be able to freely pass into and out of existing and new affinity groups.

If not, then you may have an A-list syndrome.One last point of clarity. I do not mean that a network cannot have a private or exclusive group. Just that there is no unintentional blockage that might signify a network design flaw or central control.

No Comments »

In the old days, when people still listened to albums, you almost always found yourself liking some of the less popular songs better.

The biggest Allman Bros. fans like the eighteen minute, live “Whipping Post” better than “Ramblin’ Man”, which is available at every diner juke-box in the country.
So when it came time to turn a friend on to that band, you tried to impress them with the  more sophisticated stuff. “Listen to this guitar part. . .”

You might have been more successful introducing them to the “hooks” first.

It seems to me that a lot of Bloggers and Geeks are delving into the “deep cuts.” The world needs to be intoduced to the “hit.”

That’s not necessarily a Technorati 100 blog, by the way. It’s not reach that creates a hit anymore, it’s relationship. The new “hits” are perfect for “me,” not necessarily the whole world.
Search was a hit, because it was immediately understandable and useful to everyone.

A blog about gardening with 100 readers but tailored to my geography, could be a “hit.”

To introduce someone to RSS, you need to help them find their “hit” , not your Swan Song .

No Comments »

This 2.5 year old post by Stephen Downes seems to touch upon some currently hot topics. OPML, Semantic Social Networks and Identity for click-lazy.

No Comments »