Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Be the network?

I haven't had time to digest this new Jeff Jarvis post admonishing media companies to "become to network," but I have been thinking about the idea. Reading his previous posts and recent, related items about Glam, are provocative. This is worth thinking about, especially where we're particularly advantaged: local geographic regions.

Jeff says:

Google grew by building a network. So did Glam. I say that is a model for survival and growth among media companies. Local newspapers, for example, should be building hyperlocal networks of local blogs; with them, they can expand coverage and reach in ways that were never possible when they depended only on staff.

3 comments:

Andria said...

A different example, from the realm of science and academia:
http://scienceblogs.com/channel/about.php
Each blogger has a badge that links to the bigger network.

Don't say, "We don't need no stinking badges." I'm beginning to think they'd be a good idea.

Kim said...

As a blogger and a journalist, i think networks and others like Glam provide a sort of community that bloggers otherwise do not have and journalists survive on. As a journalist, I can turn to my colleagues for contacts insight, etc, but as a blogger, without a network, I'd have no partnership, no support, no one to bounce ideas off of.

I think it's also comforting to readers to see a site's badge or memberships and know that you're looking at a Glam, b5, FM or Gawker site and you know where they are coming from. Blog networks have personalities that I'm not sure newspapers have, yet.

Dave Mastio said...

Here's an example of newspaper building the network:

blognetwork.knoxnews.com