Return of the blog! I admit I slacked a bit last week – a combination of travel and an extremely busy “vacation” (I worked hard all week, but not on NAA stuff) all conspired against the blog. Excuses, excuses.
Anyway, I wanted to weigh in on the Newsweek article controversy mentioned in this morning’s Online Publishing Update. Here’s what I put into the OPU this morning:
Newsweek: UGC Falling Out of Favor; Bloggers Disagree
Web 2.0 is based around the user: User-generated video, social networking and more have driven traffic at sites like YouTube and MySpace. “But now some of the same entrepreneurs that funded the user-generated revolution are paying professionals to edit and produce online content,” Newsweek reported. “In short, the expert is back. The revival comes amid mounting demand for a more reliable, bankable Web.” Reasons include the ability to attract advertisers risk-free and charge more to those advertisers for access to vetted, quality content.
However, several bloggers slammed Newsweek’s article for using more anecdotes than statistics to back up the claim that UGC is falling out of favor. Howard Owens of GateHouse Media wrote, “And people wonder why I think journalism needs to be reinvented. When unexamined blather like this Newsweek piece can see the light of day, there is something seriously wrong with journalism.”
Terry Heaton wrote, “Let’s begin with the assumption in the title (“Revenge of the Experts”), that there is a battle underway in our culture between experts and amateurs. Says who? The so-called experts, that’s who, because they feel their protected turf is being threatened. It is, but not by any amateur movement or cult. Institutional arrogance is their biggest threat. They need to look in the mirror.”
I won’t jump on the Owens-Heaton bandwagon, although I do mostly agree with their criticisms. But, with a nod to the Beatles-iTunes deal (or not?), I will say this: Maybe all we need is love.
I’ve been doing a bit of research and writing and editing on online communities and community journalism v. MSM and “pros” v. “ams” and “professionally produced” v. UGC…and I’m starting to wonder why there’s so much “this v. that” in the Web world.
What happened to “both-and”?
Why is it taking some media experts so long to figure out that the people going to their Web sites (and driving up traffic and advertising revenue) are not actually the enemies?
Jay Rosen’s Beat Blogging project and Wired/NewAssignment’s Assignment Zero and (maybe) the Dallas Morning News JFK project have taught us this: The audience is not perfect, however the audience can be knowledgeable, helpful, insightful and interesting. The audience provides traffic (of course), but there are ways they can also help mainstream media organizations extend their brand reach and more fully integrate into the communities they serve. And, adding user-generated content to just about any site through photos and videos and comments <drumroll> drives traffic even more!
User-generated content mixed with content that is more professionally produced creates a win-win situation: Site visitors win by getting more interesting and useful content -- even if it's not perfect -- and the site wins by attracting site visitors with more interesting and useful content. I’m not seeing “v.” here. I'm seeing "and." Where's the love?
Shameless plug alert: One of the arguments in the Newsweek article was that expert produced content attracts advertising because it’s “safe.” Section 3 of the Online Community Cookbook, released today, begs to differ: Several newspaper.coms are already successfully and creatively selling advertising in and around user-generated content.