I'm going to string together several notes and links in this post to save time. Things are popping in terms of "social networking" and it seems that MSM organizations are finally catching on to how being linked to people who are in touch with scads of their friends via Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, etc. is a good way to build up an audience for content. Facebook is offering publishers a button they can put on their site to link content to eyeballs via the Facebook grapevine.
The details of Jeff Rosen's new project are getting spelled out . The new words for describing the hybrid journalism that Rosen (and Suzanne McBride and I here at Columbia in Chicago) are exploring are useful in helping those who aren't familiar with all that the web affords in terms of being connected and in setting up contextual networks of people and information understand the potential and mechanisms of "pro-am journalism"
Business models and economic questions arise as the promise of new media technology comes face-to-face with corporate capitalism in the short-term. Ohmynews, which has been profitable may not make money in 2006 . Thus business writers are proclaiming that its model doesn't work, etc. My take on it is that global economics is in turmoil as corporate capitalistic systems like the one in the US (especially as our economic policies are formed with help from policy decisions by agencies like FCC, rather than in a rational or technologically determined manner) bumps up against new forces like reputation-ranking and gift economies. I'd be hesitant to condemn a project as soon as it encounters a bit of difficulty. I say give it a few years. How Ohmynews will make money is still in flux I think as is the path by which the NYTImes or BBC will make money, but it seems to those companies that UGC or user-generated content is a key element and Ohmynews has been developing UGC for some time.
