Natali it’s only going to be a matter of time before Yahoo or someone else solicits writing. Interested to hear your thoughts on how traditional journalists will deal with that?

Why is art okay but writing not?

>Natali it’s only going to be a matter of time before Yahoo or someone else solicits writing.

Actually, France’s Le Monde has been doing just that for quite some time. Le Monde is one of the first newspaper in the World to offer blogs to their readers, under the Le Monde brand. They have also published a ranking of the 10 top blogs, mixing their journalists blogs and their readers blogs, showing them at the same level, based on blog readers recommendations.

http://www.loiclemeur.com/engl.....uts_r.html

You get what you pay for !

Funny….

http://www.ezecho.com

Digg might do the same!

http://www.groundreport.com/articles.php?id=54

Well essentially anyone can submit stories now as a freelancer, I guess. But where is the quality control if news organizations start openly accepting journalistic articles in the format discussed above? Who is going to edit all of that? Or fact check? It’s not that I don’t think anyone could do it better than us pros. I just don’t think there are resources for managing that. Besides, take it from me, most writers practically work for free anyway. (But not TechCrunch writers of course!)

If anyone can submit articles, it will come down to being able to filter and organize that content using Digg-like rating systems. Junk articles will get buried, the same way Google “buries” junk search results.

This is essentially what GroundReport is trying to do.

http://www.groundreport.com/co.....tion=about

If they only accept photos and video, it may eliminate some of the spam and irrelevant material (or just shift the type of spam). I wonder how many people are sitting their with their webcams as we comment.

I’d just like to go on record as saying that this “Snap” website preview stuff Techcrunch has been using lately is as annoying as hell.

Holler at that Verful.

Jon Stewart reports on CNN’s iReport: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vbLrDtvav8

This seems to speak Yahoo’s desire to create local content similar (in a way) to their recent newspaper deal. The challenge will be creating effective monetization of this through contextual advertising, sponsorship or other methods.

Associated Content does the best job at paying citizen journalist and they also get them the best exposure on the web.

@ John

I’d bet my right tes… err… I’m sure they’ve thought about that in Panama

How many of the articles on tc come from others - meaning that the tips and so forth - vs. the editors going out and getting them.

I’d bet its at least 90/10 in favor of people sending in content.

I think when CNN uses someone’s video, pictures or information in a story on the channel, that person should be paid. Same as the CNN reporters get paid. Fact is that these stations and web sites want free content that they can monetize the fuk out of it and pay the person nothing.

This is a great idea, but I also agree that Yahoo has to somehow provide some incentive for users to contribute ($, fame, etc).

I love the picture here - http://news.yahoo.com/page/youwitnessnews. instead of staying in your basement during a hurricane, get out the camera and go make a few bucks!

Natali, its interesting you distinguish photo/art from writing. The content submitted in photos can obviously be just as “false” and in need of editing, as much as writing may. And can be more damaging depending on the circumstances.

As you know, traditional journalism is undergoing this user-generated content “revolution”. Where it all ends up is anyones guess, but your concern for the logistical resources of an organisation to perform fact checking and editing, ends up coming across as old world thinking being threatened by the coming wave.

Particularly ironic considering it is from a Web 2.0 blog journo.

Cheers

This seems like what makes http://www.newsvine.com so great. I love what Newsvine has to offer and am excited to see what Yahoo! can do.

I guess the logical extension of internet companies that don’t make money is content providers who don’t get paid.

I heard we were moving toward a cashless society, but damn…

hmm…well this concept worked quite well for answers. I can’t wait to amass all of my meaningless points.

Why don’t you like the idea of them soliciting writing? This could get sketchy with copyright issues. Its so hard to prove ownership.

Writing is more problematic - but will naturally follow.

The blogosphere has given a lot of people hope that they can convert their current job into a paid writing career - but there simply isn’t the cash to pay tens of thousands of people more than pennies. So the jam will/is simply getting spread more thinly - the result being fewer full-time journalists and many more paid just a few quid, until they get bored. The long tail of blogging is the likely reality - with no-one truly benefiting.

Secondly unless submissions are edited then the possibility of litigation looms large - regardless of any legalistic disclaimers that sites might pin their hopes on. Also no mechanical system can work out who writes well in the same way that an experienced editor can - no editing, no quality control.

Finally the idea of ratings determining quality is badly flawed. I edit a long established football web site and the feature articles are rated; so should I be able to tell from that which are the better writers? No. People are more likely to rate highly articles they agree with; and conversely rate poorly articles in favour of ideas (or teams) they disapprove of.

Ratings are not an indicator of quality merely of popularity. If you want to kill all investigative journalism, all challenging journalism and all journalism that tells difficult home truths then use a ratings system!

These developments seem the precursor for a new wave of bland, re-tread journos that concentrate on churning out as much content as possible that is as popular as possible so that they can get noticed - and paid. Good journalists trying to break into this market will research and craft the stuff - and get lost in the tsunami.

I agree with Antony. ‘Ratings are not an indicator of quality merely of popularity’

On the other hand, users will find a detailed list of Web 2.0 sites that pay users here:

http://mediavidea.blogspot.com.....sites.html

Ohhhhhhhhh, puh-leeeze!

Spare us the “Professional Journalist” routine.

You mean fact checking like Jayson Blair or CNN’s “Tailwind” garbage? Colombia’s “journalism” school is undergoing a huge investigation because of its students cheating on an ETHICS test.

There’s a reason old media (NYT, LA Times, broadcast news) is sliding down the crapper and it’s that none of the things you mention were present to begin with.

Strange that media came of age challenging power then lost out because IT’S power was challenged.

no comment

i d like to see it to beguin