Citizen Journalism from the well-connected Koreans
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Citizen Journalism is not only emerging, but is becoming a dominant form of news media the world over. In South Korea, which currently enjoys one of the most connected and high use mobile data service networks, the model is tried and tested through citizen journalism and online publisher OhMyNews. Being constantly in the nation with the 4th fastest broadband rates and 2nd most pervasive mobile data networks, means that news can come in at a rate much faster than any newspaper in the world could ever possibly print at. When new media forms rival the cost and speed of distribution of existing media like this, what we have on our hands is a potential creative destroyer.
OhMyNews certainly got off to an excellent start, one that many analysts attributed to the unique political situation and geographical settings at the time of its launch in 2003. OhMyNews began as an idea for an answer to the monetization and organization of the common blog, taking that model a step further by allowing every member to contribute news articles with the same opportunity of being featured on the main site (think landing page… or… you could equate it to the front page of the newspaper). The opportunity of being featured is decided solely by the site’s users. The site has been not only wildly successful with millions of visitors per day, but also profitable.
After quickly gaining readership numbers in the millions and near-professional quality contributions from thousands of “Featured Reporters/Bloggers” and over 35,000 total contributors, they received a great deal of interest and aggressively pursued international markets to continue their drastic growth rates. The site reported net earnings in excess of $1.8 million in 2005, plus $11 million worth of venture capital investments in 2006 from Softbank Corp’s CEO and President of Internet Services, Masayoshi Son. They even seemed poised to shake up all global news agencies for a time.
However, as the Blogosphere saturated towards the end of 2006, trouble appeared to be looming ahead, and it was unclear if the model can survive. It has continued to
Still, the basic premise is undeniably intriguing… can paying regular users a portion of Ad revenues to encourage quality content contributions ever provide a sustainable business model? If the answer is yes, then the digital landscape will soon change forever. Sure, it may seem as though it’s changing enough as is, but think about the possibility of adopting a similar (but possibly more streamlined) model to other content areas.
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You can find out more about the Independent Online News organization here:
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=169396&…
And see a profile of some of the “Featured Writers” earning an income from their online news reporting activities:
http://english.ohmynews.com/sub_form/column_view.asp
Related Articles
- Citizen Journalism Not a Luxury in Russia, Egypt (sixestate.com)
- Citizen Journalism Meets Sports Reporting (sixestate.com)
- Citizen Journalism and Privacy Rights (sixestate.com)
- Youtube challenges traditional journalism (journalistjan.wordpress.com)
- #jpod – Dying for the story: Citizen journalism and the Arab spring (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
- AllVoices Wrangling to Be Top Citizen Journalism Site (sixestate.com)
Gaijin and LFD go live…
Gaijin Movie – Poster (Photo credit: bcmoney)
The first of many BC$ MobileTV content offerings were released as an early preview through the From Here To Awesome (FHTA) Film Festival, as well as through BC$, and festival partners Blip.tv, YouTube and MySpace.
Our movie’s preview submission page can be viewed at:
http://fromheretoaweseome.com/gaijin/
Links to both of the preview trailers are included below for your viewing pleasure:
Gaijin: The Movie – (preview for FROM HERE TO AWESOME Film Festival)
Teaser for Lonely Fish Diaries – BC$ Original Webisode… coming soon!
Money Talks…
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Murphy’s Law on money & power (aka. Murphy’s Gold Rule):
Whoever has the gold makes the rules
This is in fact an age-old saying, but it is incredibly relevant today in this time of economic turmoil. Especially in the case of business start-ups and the increasingly expensive legal defenses that few companies can afford.
Following lawsuits earlier this year from insurance company Geico over the use of its trademark in competitors’ ads that rank highly in AdWords next to the search term ‘Geico’, Google faces more lawsuits at the hands of American Airlines, Rescuecom, and potentially others. MediaPost’s Wendy Davis covers the first hearing at the Federal Appeals court in Federal Court Waxes Theoretical During Google Search Case.
The three-judge panel grilled both the Google and Rescuecom lawyers in the opening proceedings, which ran double its allotted time. Arguments were given in support of each side’s position. Google’s lawyer Michael H. Page compared Google paid & sponsored search results to a retail store, where it is common practice to place a competitor’s products next to anothers, under one common category; while Rescuecom’s lawyer, Edmund J. Gegan, argued “We are not alleging it’s wrong to sell the right to be placed next door to something,” … “but Rescuecom searches should not yield results for competitors. “When you search on ‘Rescuecom,’ you’re only supposed to get results for ‘Rescuecom’–not for computer services,” he said.
We at BC$ believe this is a key moral, ethical and legal question and will be very interested in the outcome of the trials. Everyday, we are working to find a way to level the playing field for all advertisers, companies and users so that information can be accessed, ranked and displayed as fairly, transparently and accountably as possible. From the beginning, we realize that this is the way to establish trust within our system.
Good luck to Google in finally figuring out the same for their text-based Search Ads. We will be celebrating if that day ever comes. In any case, the trial puts the spotlight on a potential weakness in their system and the online advertising community could get a boost if the weakness is removed.
BC$ = Behavior, Content, Money
The goal of the BC$ project is to raise awareness and make changes with respect to the three pillars of information freedom - Behavior (pursuit of interests and passions), Content (sharing/exchanging ideas in various formats), Money (fairness and accessibility) - bringing to light the fact that:
1. We regularly hand over our browser histories, search histories and daily online activities to companies that want our money, or, to benefit from our use of their services with lucrative ad deals or sales of personal information.
2. We create and/or consume interesting content on their services, but we aren't adequately rewarded for our creative efforts or loyalty.
3. We pay money to be connected online (and possibly also over mobile), yet we lose both time and money by allowing companies to market to us with unsolicited advertisements, irrelevant product offers and unfairly structured service pricing plans.