Readers gravitating to open media model

At Thursday night’s introductory panel at the BlogOn conference …

Someone (perhaps John Roberts of CNET) said: “RSS is a Napster for ideas.”

Tony Perkins: “I think this is the biggest thing that’s ever happened [in media]. Just as big media was bottoming out, bloggers came in and said, Wait a minute, we have something to say here. We’ll see the complete blowing apart of the media world and get high quality content that fits in your pocket. …

“In an era where big media has been producing junk food — when the New York Times pisses you off and you want to talk back or post a comment or contact the writer but can’t — people won’t trust brands that don’t succumb to the open media model. I think this is happening fast and media that don’t open to the open source media concept are going to be voted out.”

Listening to Tony, who criticizes the Times from the political right (he prefers Fox News), and hearing from those on the left who criticize the Times for taking an institutional establishment stand, I remember that I used to think the solution for news organizations to play it down the middle. I used to think it was a matter of balance. I don’t believe it’s that simple anymore. I think it’s more about access now. As Tony suggested, people are beginning to resent the top-down megaphone model that doesn’t allow for dialogue and conversation and interaction.

Jason McCable Calacanis suggested from the audience that the New York Times will never embrace blogs in a wholesale fashion because of its insistence on fact-checking, a process that often takes hours when the blog audience wants instantaneous access to breaking news in real time.

Christian Crumlish responded that the Times is taking tentative first steps with its campaign blog and similar efforts and that we may see a cross between real-time blogging and traditional reporting by the professional media.

After the session, I finally met face to face with Robert Scoble, the bounce-off-the-walls-with-electric-enthusiasm Microsoftie, who told me that yes, indeed, he checks 1,400 RSS feeds a day (he’s also a big fan of this blog). Amazing.

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.