Due interessanti contributi sul sempre piu' stretto sviluppo di blogs e traditional media (ma e' MSNBC un traditional media?) tratti da
OPA - Online Publishers AssociationMSNBC.com nabs Newsvine as its first buyoutThe brief history of citizen journalism startups has been mixed.
Bayosphere and Backfence went belly-up, while
Pegasus News was bought and NowPublic scored $10 million in funding. Adding to the plus column, startup Newsvine was recently bought by MSNBC.com in the site's first buyout in its 11-year existence. MSNBC said it would keep Newsvine separate but incorporate some of its features while co-promoting on both sites. Can a big mainstream media site get along with one that's created by users? "Given the right environment, an ecosystem where big and little media make each other stronger can be developed," wrote Newsvine CEO Mike Davidson on his blog. PaidContent's Rafat Ali pegs the buyout at $5 million to $7 million, and says it gives MSNBC.com a boost into the social media space. "Expect some more acquisitions…" he writes.
BusinessWeek's Catherine Holahan takes a broader look at mainstream media sites starting to accept and run user-generated stories, photos and videos from breaking news events. "At its best, user-generated content provides extra eyes and unique insights around news events that even media giants with large staffing and resources can't hope to supply for every story,” she writes. "At its worst, however, user-generated content can expose a news organization to libel suits and damage reputations." Still, publishers have been willing to take the risk in order to compete against social media, aggregators and blogs online. And training programs for citizen journalists have sprung up from the Knight Foundation and the Society of Professional Journalists.
Newspapers and bloggers working together...at lastFor ages, bloggers have been known for attacking the hated "MSM" while ink-stained types have railed against pajama-wearing bloggers. Now, the dogs are sleeping with cats as newspaper sites cozy up with bloggers for ad-sharing deals, buyouts or content syndication. The Los Angeles Times counts the ways they are now working together:
Washingtonpost.com has a sponsored blog roll with an ad-sharing deal with about 100 bloggers; the Guardian has its own blog ad network;
the Houston Chronicle has recruited 50 reader-bloggers to contribute content;
the New York Times scooped up the Freakonomics blog. Why are the sworn enemies kissing and making up? It turns out that newspaper sites need more content to serve more advertising, while bloggers could use some extra cash and exposure.
Meanwhile,
CBS Interactive snapped up the gossip blog, Dotspotter, for about $10 million, in order to "acq-hire" the folks who run the site. And the guessing game continues on which big blog will be bought by Big Media next: Huffington Post? TechCrunch? GigaOm? Boing Boing? The 24/7 Wall St. blog's Douglas McIntyre thought that Huffington Post could be worth $100 million or more to the New York Times or Washington Post. McIntyre thinks CNET or Dow Jones might be interested in TechCrunch. "The largest blogs will get offers," he writes. "Too many Big Media companies need additional outlets and content on the web. The problem for the potential buyers is keeping the talent at the blog sites."
Labels: Backfence.com, Bayosphere, blogs, Boing Boing, freakonomics, GigaOm, Huffington Post, msnbc, new york times, newspapers, Pegasus News, TechCrunch
E' in linea il mio intervento settimanale del venerdi' (.mp3 - 8 MB) sulla settimana a Wall Street in diretta a "Il Punto su Piazza Affari" di Carla Signorile in onda tutti i giorni alle 18 su Radio Classica del gruppo Class/MilanoFinanza.
