Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Citizen journalism hits the big screen, and small.

NowPublic made a “crowd powered news” splash last month when it snagged $10.6 million venture capital infusion to “enable NowPublic to further its goal of being the largest news network in the world with more people on the ground in the right places and at the right times to report the news.”

According to NowPublic, “News is new information on current events.” Sounds straight forward. But, in analyzing NowPublic’s “FrontPage”  at the time of its funding announcement and during Storm Erin last week, I found that NowPublic “contributors” were not generally posting original, primary-sourced “news.” Rather, NowPublic “news” stories appeared to be predominately of the derivative blogging style ilk, “borrowed” cut and pastes of ”news” stories originally reported by paid, professional news reporting organizations and/or other blogs.

NowPublic advises prospective contributors:

The news you post should be “news in this commonly accepted sense. It will be one of three types:”

1) Original, relevant information about a current event that you have actually witnessesed, documented or reserached.
2) New information yo have collected, aranged and contextualized about a current event.
3) Commentary, advice or analysis directly related to a current event.

As NowPublic often presents news commentary, rather than actual eye witness accounts, I asked Michael Tippett (”the guy who started up this crazy thing in his garage”) to explain his claim that NowPublic mobilizes “an army of reporters to cover the events that define our world.”

Our exchage is below.

DB: You assert NowPublic is a platform for citizen journalism. Nevertheless, on August 23, NowPublic’s lead homepage “Front Page story concerning Storm Erin, a breaking weather event that ought to be tailor made for the “crowd powered media” formula Nowpublic espouses, was not a citizen eye-witness account, it was a “cut and paste” redireect to an “original story” produced by Associated Press reporting and published by the U.K.’s Guardian Unlimited.

The number two Nowpublic “best crowd powered news” story featured on the Front Page, “59 year old makes college football team,” was also a “cut and paste” from an original AP report published at a Canadian sports news Website.

Why does Nowpublic claim to mobilize an “army of reporters to cover the events that define our world” when the NowPublic Front Page “news” often presents as a Digg-like aggregation of links to original reporting done by third party organizations and published elsewhere?

TIPPETT: Our view of crowd powering the news is very broad.

With thousands of reports coming in weekly it is simply not possible to manage the inflow and determine what is good, bad or otherwise using traditional, centrally controlled strategies. The alternative to this route is to crowd source the editorial (digglike, if you will). As a result the stories on the homepage are chosen largely based on the interests of our members. These choices and areas of focus wil often coorespond to decisions made within traditional news organizations. It is no surprise that people are interested in a category 5 hurricane or a bridge collapse.

But that is only one piece of the puzzle. The story abut Storm Erin uses a highlighted item from The Guardian. Our highlight tool lets people cite other websites as the source of news material and provides links back to the source document. in this regard we are no different than other news services (a search on the NYTime’s website for “reuters” for example produces 47 thousand results). We are not purists in this regard and we have never claimed to never cite 3rd party sources as the basis for anything.Quite the contrary, we think that 3rd party sources are often a very good starting point for discussion or additonal reporting.

Where we do feature original content in the Storm Erin example is in the commentary provided in the comments section and in the footage supplied by members. Material that has come in: http://www.nowpublic.com/node/615322/footage/list

The story has material from two eye witnesses so far. These are real people, on the ground, providing original reporting. I would expect the amount of material to grow over time. I’m not suggesting that all members provide Pullitzer worthy material but they do provide a citizen perspective of the news. They are living within the news cycle and it is their story thta NowPublic strives to tell.

THANKS MICHAEL.

ALSO: GOOGLE MEDIA: One-Stop News Empire for Stories, Videos AND Letters to the Google Editor

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Google News is a joke: Shelby Bonnie, former CNET CEO, suggested as much at the NYC MIXX conference last year. With a nod to fellow panelist Tim Armstrong, Google VP Ad Sales, Bonnie underscored the uselessness of listing dozens of versions of the “same AP story,” as Google News does.

Algorithmic filtering and machine ranking can not subsititute for editorial judgement in identifying and prioritizing content, Bonnie indicated. Moreover, seeing the handful of stories that “people are actually doing the work on” ought to be the norm, Bonnie asserted.

Can Google News get its editorial act together? The Los Angeles Times does not believe so, headling an editorial on Google News: “It’s not journalism.”

Does the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review want the LA Times to shut up about Google?

Should the Times apologize to Google for pointing out that “journalism is more than just aggregating information”? The blogosphere undoubetdly thinks so.

After all, Dave Winer admonished Jason Calacanis that HE should apologize to Google for pointing out that Google SERPs are not pristine. Winer even scripted a handy mea culpa for Calacanis to submit to Google:

To our friends at Google. I’d like to apologize for saying that your search engine is filled with spam.

“Our friends” at Google? The shrewd, secretive $160 billion market cap Google with a determined manifest destiny to obtain, control and house all the public, private and personal data in the world, belonging to every man, woman and organization on the planet, in its “massively, scalable infrastrucure” in the cloud? THOSE Google “friends”?

Why is the Web’s monopolist acting powerhouse welcomed as a personal friend, while desktop monopolizing Microsoft is reviled as a direct enemy? Because Google is seen as a new age Santa Clause, a beneficent SERP fountain of the almighty “flow” and a turnkey AdSense monetization spigot.

Google “friendship” is a dangerous illusion, though. From dreams of “free, organic” traffic to calculations of super sized AdWords and AdSense ROI, the Web’s Google dependency fuels a ballooning GOOG while robbing Web publishers of their independent, stand alone economic futures.

The L.A. Times actually case in point. For all their independent who needs Google “sound and fury,” Times’ journalists are very conventionally Google dependendent as well.

ALSO: Does USC Annenberg OJR Want Old Media Journalists to Shut Up?

The Web’s fuel–Ads by Google–is funding the L.A. Times “It’s not journalism” opinion.

PLUS: Google Office Ignores Sun StarOffice: Microsoft Killer Still MIA and Google vs. Facebook, the Next Big Battle

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Michael Arrington speculates that “USA Today’s social network experiment” may not be paying off, based primarily on traffic numbers supplied by controversial data house Compete.

Coincidentally, the head of USA Today owner Gannett, Craig Dubow, warned company staffers last week, of “unwarranted speculation generated by a few bloggers.”

“Dear co-workers” Dubow began in a memo to employees, as cited by Editor & Publisher:

I want to put an end to the unwarranted speculation generated by a few bloggers this week. A change in control of Gannett is not in the works or even anticipated.

This handful of bloggers made some incorrect assumptions about information in our quarterly filing with the SEC. None of the bloggers called and checked with us before speculating that we were preparing for a sale. We are not.

The principal goal of Dubow’s personal shoutout to the Gannett troops was to encourage his team to perservere with the “lots of good things happening throughout the company” and to look forward to more “interesting new approaches to innovation” slated for the fall.

“So, stand down. Relax,” Dubow wrote:

Gannett, along with the media industry, is facing some tough times but we are avctively and agressively moving forward with out strategic plan. We are seeing success and creating more of it everyday. 

Dubrow acknowledges “it may feel like a tough ride at the moment,” but affirms his appreciation to employees for “all you are doing to make this transformation happen.”

After all, the “USAToday experiment” Arrington references began just months ago. Is it not premature to predict failure not only for Gannett’s social media endeavors, but for all of old media’s embrace of new media tools?

Arrington concludes his USA Today speculation by speculating on bad times ahead for the entire social news phenomenon underway:

Perhaps news and social networking just don’t mix.

Really? Perhaps Kevin Rose would suggest otherwise, and, as of yesterday, Scott Karp as well.

TechCrunch commenter Max undersocres the risks of extrapolating from Compete’s numbers:

The March to June comparison is fairly meaningless, particulalry in news segment, where traffic is driven by news events. Big stories in March versus a slow news month in June would easily mask smaller trends.

A visit to USAToday.com suggests that not only is an engaged readership actively interacting with ”real” USA Today journalists, USA Today editorial, itself, is embracing its citizens’ journalists.

The lead quotes on USAToday.com’s masthead come from reader contributors, NOT paid Gannett reporters.

ALSO: WikiYou to Aaron Cohen: ‘YOU Screwed Over BOLT! Not once but twice!’ and Digg, Google Capitulate to Facebook: Will Zuckerberg Fess Up?

PLUS: Facebook Beats LinkedIn AND Twitter Trumps Mahalo!

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

PubCon offers street tips on giving a “kick ass presentation,” including “The Big Finish.”

A “top” chef in the food capital of the world–New York City–has some “kick ass ” street words of wisdom as well for “The Big Finish.”

“What’s the worst thing about New York diners,” TimeOut magazine asked 40 of the Big Apple’s biggest name chefs, anonymously.

Responses are, for the most part, predictable:

Impatience,
Big hurry,
Snobby,
They go to exercise power as opposed to, you know, eat,
Hell, they’re great, compared to the rest of the country,
Nothing, they like chefs and they know wine,
They judge before they taste…

All of the above chef comments could have been offered up as a reflection of the NYC culinary scene 5, 10, even 20 years ago. One “top” NYC chef, though, provides a very new media world perspective on “the worst thing about New York diners”:

They all go home and write blogs instead of having sex. I used to try and get my date liquored up. Now everyone goes home and writes reviews. That’s f—ed up.

Hungry, bloggers?

ALSO: Digg, Google Capitulate to Facebook

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

What in the journalism world is Scott Karp up to? Bloggers want to know!

Karp (in)famously takes but a few (suscinct) paragraphs to make multi-billion dollar business model assertions about the prospects of multi-billion dollar public companies, i.e. his six (short) paragraph “How Apple will use the iPhone to take over the wireless industry,” which gets right to the point: “Steve Jobs isn’t stupid.”

Surprsingly, though, he takes 50 plus paragraphs to pre-announce his own venture, but still leaves his readers scratching their heads.

What will karp’s impending Publish2 be then? Apparently you take a liitle bit of Digg, a lot of Techmeme, sprinkle in some Del.icio.us, top off with a smidgeon of Facebook and it helps the “networked news” medecine go down, for “journalists” and their consumer fans.

Karp generally is wary of buzzwords when used by others to hype business models, but his own venture treatise is chockfull:

journalist-powered news aggregator
networked human intelligence
people are the new medium
harness the network

One thing Karp IS clear about, his ambitions: “Publish2 aspires to be the ultimate consumer-facing news service.”

Who needs Google News, Digg, Techmeme…then?

Commenter Tom at Karp’s blog wants to get to the heart of the business matter, as Karp ordnarily aims to do, about the businesses of others:

What is the pain felt by the customer and how does your solution directly reduce the pain? How big is the market (# of users/customers)? What is so truly unique about your product that people will drop other services they use to go with yours? What is the compelling value proposition? How do you make money?

Saying something is a “platform” doesn’t explain wht the product is to me, why it’s needed.

WHY another “news” aggregator? Because aggregation is where the (easy) news money is.

Karp declares his intention to rule the Web’s news delivery and extols the work of “journalists.” BUT, in pitching the “value proposition” he offers such journalists, much high falutin talk of “the network effect on the Web” is doled out, while old school cold, hard greenbacks are never mentioned.

How DOES Publish2 “create value” for journalists? By “enabling journalists to take control of their identity” and “network enhancing their existing workflow.”

New media money in the bank? Not exactly. Karp indirectly chides Google for not getting its News algorithms right, but he is firmly on board with the Googley link barter economy.

Why not share more than link love, though? Robert Scoble would undoubtedly want to know, and so would I.

As I wrote re Google News in Scoble to Google: Pay Us For Our Content! You Go Robert:

Shouldn’t Google share the wealth it enjoys with those that enable it via their original content, Scoble asks vs a vs Google News. I have been underscoring that publishers get the short end of the money stick with Google News for a year.

Google shrewdly barters search engine links for free access to the content of others to garner its hefty profit margins. Google, though, is the only guaranteed winner in its link barter based business model.

Google dangles promises of bountiful search traffic eagerly clicking on news “headlines” and book “snippets.” Google’s promises of link love, however, are merely ephemeral IOUs, without any tangible, guaranteed return on copyright exploitation.

What is certain, however, is that Google gains no-cost access to content, which it can sell ads against.

The Google revolution is not that it is “organizing the worlds’ information” or that it is providing “targeted, measurable advertising.” The Google revolution is that it has succeeded in portraying itself as a magnanimous business “partner” that delights in showering the Web world with Google link love.

I concluded by underscoring that Google is NOT the Web’s Santa Claus.

What about Scott Karp though? We will have to wait to September to know.

PLUS Exclusive Interview: How Pegasus News Fuels Local Media Business Model for Fisher Communications

AND: If ‘We the Media’ Poaches Content, Who Pays for News Production? and FLASH! NowPublic Digg Clone Preps Global ‘News’ Domination.

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Heads up: Google “news” hypocrisy plows on, big time.

The latest Google announcement seeking to affirm that Google really will organize ALL the world’s information offers the crowd pleasing: “a personal view can sometimes add a whole new dimension to the story.”

How so? Google News blog:

We wanted to give you a heads-up on a new, experimental feature we’ll be trying out on the Google News home page. Starting this week, we’ll be displaying reader comments on stories in Google News, but with a bit of a twist…

We’ll be trying out a mechanism for publishing comments from a special subset of readers: those people or organizations who were actual participants in the story in question. Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we’ll show them next to the articles about the story.

Really Google? Then why do YOU prohibit comments about public events at the New York City Googleplex?

The Google News blog post PR spin for the new Google News feature waxes poetic about personal perspectives on news:

We’re hoping that by adding this feature, we can help enhance the news experience for readers, testing the hypothesis that — whether they’re penguin researchers or presidential candidates– a personal view can sometimes add a whole new dimension to the story.

If Google is SO keen on enabling “personal views” to enhance the news experience then why does Google muzzle commmunication about news about Google and Google sponsored public events?

Google CEO Eric Schmidt refused to take questions from the press in an open to the public Q & A after his keynote at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City in May, a conference financed by Google which purportedly sought to champion open media communication.

Google has prohibited members of the press from attending open to the pulblic events at the Googleplex in NYC, such as an inspirational talk by the “father of the Internet” and Google evangelist Vint Cerf, in a speaker series billed as a public reach out to all New Yorkers interested in technology.

Google demands that attendees of open to the public events at the Googleplex in NYC pledge to NOT comment, or report, in any venue, including Google News, about anything that goes on in not so top secret public discussions at the Googleplex, such as public career paths for testing engineers.

The official Google position on NO COMMENTS on open to the public events at the Googleplex in NYC:

In order to support the free and open exchange of information, we kindly ask that attendees refrain from recording or reporting on these meetings, their content or Google.

Google “news” hypocriocy at its best: Google bans “the journalists who help create the news” from its public events AND prohibits civilians from participating in “free and open exchange of information” about Google, while proclaiming itself not only to be the safe keeper of all the world’s information, but an advocate for media freedom as well.

WILL GOOGLE EVER PRACTICE WHAT IT PREACHES?

Google must unschackle the NYC Googleplex if it is to gain any credibility in its “free and open exchange of information” charade.

ALSO: Blogging Ethics: Why Blog ‘Disclosure’ is NO Panacea plus Facebook Profile Hijacked: Beware the Dangerous OPEN Social Graph

PLUS: Hearst Buys Kaboodle: Social Shopping or Editorial eCommerce? and Spock vs. Facebook People Search Smackdown

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN