Steve Outing writes in E-Media Tidbits today:
The concept of “citizen journalism” is getting a lot of people excited. Proponents of it, such as Advance.net’s Jeff Jarvis, have suggested that citizen journalism is a huge business poised to take off. One of the first companies to try to make a buck from this is GetLocalNews.com, which has established a network of news websites for communities large, medium, and small across the U.S. The company has developed a web publishing infrastructure that can be used by interested local-news entrepreneurs. As GetLocalNews founders Ari Soglin and Ed Schlenker explain it, “People expressing interest in becoming GetLocalNews.com community publishers have ranged from the local gadflies who want to offer their take on city hall to trained journalists interested in running an online version of the local paper.” …
It’s certainly possible that there may be a central hub through which local communities get their news, and that there may be a profitable business in this. But I suspect that ultimately the vast majority of citizen journalism will remain independent and take place at the grassroots level. When I go to GetLocalNews’s site for my community, for instance, all I get are summaries and links to papers that I already get, such as the Pleasanton Weekly or San Francisco Chron. Where’s the value add in that?
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
They might also want to invest in a website that doesn't freeze some browsers.
They might also want to invest in a website that doesn’t freeze some browsers.