Milling Around Content: Demand Media Makes A Deal With SFGate and Forbes Launches New Blogging Platform
August 6th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
We are long tail web publishing advocates here at Burst, happy in the trenches of the internet. The right set of words might be staunch advocates. We reject the hubris of the short tail and rather think McGeorge Bundy’s admonition to technology, prominently featured as part of Answers.com’s definition of the word hubris, applies equally well to journalism: “There is no safety in unlimited journalistic hubris,” a notion that should land like a blow to the head today.
In that regard, we are watching the evolution of the content mills such as Demand Media with mixed reaction. On the one hand, it is all good that companies like Demand (and Aol.) are investing in thousands of free-lance writers to cover issues and neighborhoods in the spirit of a new media economy that is people-driven. We recognize the model. On the other, it is bad that the market needs to mimic the people-driven model that exists in the first place: the one represented by countless writers, bloggers and web publishers that built and now sustain the internet, and make it – frankly – interesting.
One model is authentic, and one is contrived – not the content, we’d assume, but the initiative, which is driven by a lack of trust in things bottom-up. It is a control(ling) thing. It is parental. It is journalistic hubris lurking in the decision tree.
And in reality it is hard to distinguish between Demand and, say, the AP with deals such as they’ve struck with SFGate and Chron.com as reported in MediaPost and Ad Age. It’s harmless, but is it earnest? Is it new media?
Burst works for Dwell Magazine and its Dwell Partner Network made up of numerous design blogs, such as Design Crack, ColourLovers, DesignMom and Better Living Through Design. These publishers are devoted to design. (The CEO of Colourlovers, Darius Monsef, wants the “whole world to find colour enlightment.” And, I think he’s serious.) SFGate enjoys connections with bloggers in the San Francisco community. Why not more? Why not for its new Homes Guide that it has turned to Demand for instead? Why not resort to what already occurs in nature, which is driven by desire not “Demand”?
By coincidence, pick-up in Morning Briefing from Media Bistro points to the announcement by Lewis DVorkin about Forbes’ intention to launch a blogging platform for “content creators, consumers and marketers alike” derived from the True/Slant start-up that Forbes purchased recently. This sounds different. Writes Mr. DVorkin:
“We recognize and embrace the need for an all-inclusive conversation. Consumers want their voices to heard on an equal playing field with content creators. Marketers want to get their message across in new ways that enable them to form relationships with both the audience and journalists.”
This platform somewhere will include editorial control that protects the Forbes brand. Fine. Provided that consumer bloggers get a chance to participate in the capitalist conversation, however, driven by their desire and knowledge to do so, advertisers will indeed benefit from the intimacy and rapport that is possible online. As we argue, there’s nothing like relationships that get formed in the trenches.
