I don’t need to explain the meaning of participatory journalism. With the phenomenal growth of social news sites in recent years, the scope of participatory journalism has been further enhanced.

And I am sure in the coming days; almost all the media organizations would be encouraging participatory journalism where the readers would be the suppliers of news. I can say this in the light of MSNBC’s Newsvine acquisition.

MSNBC has acquired the two years old citizen journalism site, Newsvine for an undisclosed amount. It is the first but major acquisition by the Microsoft and NBC joint venture in its corporate history. Thus, we should except the acquisition would push forward the participatory journalism to a new direction.

Mike Davidson, the CEO of Newsvine has reportedly told that the social news site will be operating as a separate entity despite being claimed by MSNBC.

It means that the Newsvine members will continue to link to their favorite news of the day, submit comments, and write their own stories. So, what benefits could MSNBC derive with this acquisition?

Newsvine registers nearly 1.2 million unique visitors each month due to its interactive features, high quality content and updated news. It is growing at an average of 46 percent per quarter.

The citizen journalism site records more than 80,000 comments in each passing month.

The acquisition would enable MSNBC to attract more readers and advertisers towards the new wave of citizen journalism or participatory journalism.

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ZiiTrend.com is slightly different from other prediction sites as it includes social elements also. It encourages users to have fun seeing the future by actively exchanging ideas and information.

Register and become a user. You will fill out a simple profile with your user name, real name and website information. You can make friends. When you look at people’s profiles you see a history for their predictions list of their friends and their friend’s predictions.

The profile also includes tags that describe the predictions that the user has made. Once you are a user you can submit your prediction on any topic you find and you can add your own topic.

Within each prediction you can submit your individual predictions, and the web site uses these submitted values to calculate a consensus prediction value. The consensus value is called ZiiValue, and it represents the collective wisdom of the ZiiTrend community.

Image: Mashable

That’s right! The rapidly picking up social networking website, Facebook launched on February 4, 2004 is said to have users writing to each other using a feature called as Wall of Facebook and it seems that this site could have a pricy wall after all.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and the membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard College which got expanded to other Boston area schools, Rochester, Stanford, NYU, Northwestern, and all Ivy League schools within two months.

As of July 2007, the website had the largest number of registered users among college-focused sites with over 34 million active members worldwide and it also became one of the most visited websites taking a place of 7th ranking.

The name of the site refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of the campus community that U.S. colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus.

The site is free to users and generates revenue from advertising including banner ads and sponsored groups and revenues were said to be around $1.5 million per week at one point of time.

In May 2005, Facebook raised $12.7 million in venture capital from Accel Partners and on August 23, 2005, Facebook bought the domain name facebook.com from the Aboutface Corporation for $200,000 and dropped “the” from its name.

On May 2007, Facebook launched an API that allows the development of applications to be used on the site, known as Facebook Platform.

In June, the partnership begun the previous year between iTunes and Facebook continued, with the download service again offering free music samplers through the Apple Students group.

In July, Facebook announced its first acquisition, purchasing Parakey, Inc. from Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt. To top it all off the great wall then also hired YouTube’s former CFO Gideon Yu on July 24, 2007.

The original big wall, the Wall street Journal reports that software giant Microsoft wants to buy a stake in Facebook before Google does and to top the icing is the pricing which is valued at around $10 billion.

The article seems to further add fuel to the fire by stating that this social networking site might hold out for a higher valuation than Microsoft is willing to agree on as much as $15 billion. Now that is one heavily priced Wall, isn’t it?

Facebook’s appeal to the massive audience out from every corner of the globe is that huge today. With growing internet users worldwide in billions, companies want to take advantage of such huge social media marketing opportunities on the site.

It has come to levels where people have started saying that this could be the next GOOGLE in the making.

It has all the great qualities of reach, rapidly increasing awareness, innovative style and loads of novel ideas for the growing users. It is definitely raking in all the big bucks with $30 million in profits on $150 million in revenue.

Well for the day, Facebook has a long way to go to be the next Google.

The question is whether Microsoft or Google, who would get their hands on Facebook first. With the big gates fighting page to page for a stake in the Wall the stakes only seem to be looking better for the newest face in the world of social networking.

With the increasing revenues and the millions of new user’s every day, let us watch who gets their hands on first on this quickly growing wall of FACEBOOK.

Via source: searchview

The original content of Reuters will now be identified and monitored by the Attributor Corporation. This technique of protecting the content is more commonly known as fingerprinting technique. Companies like MySpace, YouTube, Daily Motion, Viacom etc use Attributor’s fingerprinting technology.

Attributor will better enable Reuters to spread its content in a more effective way over the Internet, at the same time safeguarding it as Reuters’ expands and transforms its online distribution strategy. It will also be analyzing how to distribute Reuters’ content over the ever growing Internet.

The association is Reuters’ attempt to engage in newer selling options, and provide more targeted offerings to its market and customers. It is an important move for Reuters as CNN recently announced its decision on no longer using Reuters for their content.

Source:

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So, those companies from the traditional media who are putting their best to settle themselves as online publishers, should take care that they don’t or sell less space as listings. For instance, Google, one of the successful publishers doesn’t sell any space at all. As per the experts, the company instead of the space, sells what they call ’scarce resources’ like users intentions, locality. Thus, in short, the lesson Google has for all the online publisher is ‘DON’T SELL YOUR SPACE’.

Source: Publishing2

Image Credit: Autorevo

The current government has alleged that the editor, Mr. Raja Peter Kamarudin, of a top political website of Malaysia known as Malaysia Today has ‘mocked Islam and threatened racial harmony.’ The website is quite famous in bloggers and also a favorite of Malaysians. As per the statistics, it attracts almost 250,000 visitors per day. Why the ruling party is against it, we have the reason quite clear as the website is well known for its criticisms of various political figures, especially of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the current Prime Minister.

Kamarudin on the issue said that he will make sure that they have a tough time and will do everything possible to counter them. ‘Many people, especially thenon-Malays in this country, do not have a forum to air their views,’ and that the country ’should not deny these people a chance to vent their feelings,’ he said. Where freedom of communication should no doubt, go on, the bloggers should also take care about the fact that whatever they write must have a strong basis to support. The governments should also be clear that everyone in the world has the right to speak and criticize on the basis of truth.

Source: Profy

We all know that it’s not that easy for someone to receive a Pulitzer Prize in the field of writing and photography. It generally requires a lot of hard work and dedication on the part of journalists. This year’s Pulitzer Prizes function was pretty interesting as a photographer got his Pulitzer prize after a long wait of 28 years.

Well, in the year 1979, an anonymous photographer was there at the place when executioners shot Kurdish prisoners in Sanandaj, Iran. His picture was taken by United Press International and published worldwide without the name of the photographer being mentioned. Startlingly, that image turned out to be so convincing that it was awarded the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography. It was 28 years back when an anonymous photographer was honored with the highest honor in print journalism, the Pulitzer.

In the year 2002, Joshua Prager, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, started his search to find that anonymous photographer and after some years, he came up with the name Jahangir Razmi. Aftyer so many years, Jahangir Razmi agreed to publish his name in a December 2006 article for The Journal. This was how Pulitzer Prize board was urged to look for Razmi. Sig Gissler, the administrator of the Pulitzers said:

We concluded that more publicity would be more protection.

On May 21, 2007, Razmi received the Pulitzer at a ceremony at Columbia University. But, the conditions and his journey to New York to receive the $10,000 prize were unpleasant. Siavash Zaryoun, a family friend who translated for Razmi, said:

As a journalist, he was ready to give the prize to someone else. Even in these 27 years, he has not been able to forget.

Via: IHT

New York Times knows the potential of digital publishing very well. Earlier, they added news-sharing tool to its website to catch up with the web 2.0 phenomenon. Now, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller has revealed the company’s plans to hasten the pace of transition from print to digital publishing with some striking changes. In a staff meeting he cited:

Newsroom editors need to be better informed about features that appear in their sections. They don’t necessarily have to know how to put up a slide show or put up a graphic, but they need to know who does what.

He said that the journalists who can produce content for one medium only will find it hard to survive in the industry. The multimedia journalism, in its true meaning, is knocking the doors now. He also spoke at a length about the ‘gradual reallocation of resources from print towards digital.’

Now, New York Times is now thinking of lowering its editorial standards in order to offer more quality content online. Anyhow, they are not going to discard editorial standards for online publishing but they will certainly look for creating a balance between the two.

On the question of making money from the web, Keller said:

I heartily believe we will. How, is a lot more complicated? There’s a phrase they use in drug and alcohol rehab-’fake it til you make it.’ That’s basically what we’re doing.

He further said that they are not thinking of going into the newswire service. Instead, they have plans to roll out something better than wghat they are offering at the moment.

Let’s see which way the wind blows for the time honored NewYork Times in this competitive web 2.0 arena.

Via: Gawker

Wall Street Journal emerged as the only multiple winner on Monday when the coveted Pulitzer Prizes were awarded. It won for its coverage of adverse effects of fast-paced economic development in China and a share-dealing scandal that led to changes in corporate America.

At the 91st annual Pulitzer Prizes for Journalism, Letters, Drama and Music, as many as, thirteen different news organizations won in various categories. Amongst them Wall Street Journal was the only multiple prizewinner.

Wall Street Journal won the top two prizes for journalism that were up for grabs. It bagged the prize for ‘Public Service’ and for ‘International Reporting.’ The prizes, announced at Columbia University, come with a $10,000 award except for the public service prize, the winner of which gets a gold medal.

The Pulitzer Prize for public service was awarded to Wall Street Journal for its ‘creative and comprehensive probe’ into the unethical practices of American business executives who had rewarded themselves millions of dollars by backdating stock options. The articles, by Charles Forelle, James Bandler, Mark Maremont and Steve Stecklow, led to federal investigation of more than 130 companies.

The Pulitzer Prize committee, said in a statement:

The newspaper’s coverage triggered investigations, the ouster of top officials and widespread change in corporate America.

The Journal also won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, for a series of articles about the adverse effects of industrial development on China.

Among the other winners was The New York Times, which won the editorial writing prize for its opinion articles of the fate of workers who worked at Ground Zero in the aftermath of September 11. The breaking news photography prize went to Oded Bality of The Associated Press for a photograph of a lone Jewish woman defying Israeli security forces in West Bank. The prize for local reporting went to the Miami Herald for articles by Debbie Cenziper which revealed that developers had received millions of dollars to build housing projects that they never delivered on.

The Pulitzer prize for fiction meanwhile went to Cormac McCarthy for the novel “The Road,” an account of a father and son’s journey through a post-Apocalyptic America. 77-year-old jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman was honored in music for “Sounder Grammar,” a live recording.

Also for the first time, the Pulitzer Prize Board pulled a play –” Rabbit Hole” — out of the hat for the drama award after three finalists approved by the jury in that category failed to attract the necessary majority of board members.

Source: eitb24

Instablogs Community in simple words is a personalized platform that endeavors to bring bloggers and readers closer. We do it by keeping the focus on the readers and actually making them a part of the whole blogging process. We have plethora of social tools, which not only empower readers but also help them to become writers themselves. The new version encourages better communication between writers and readers and symbolizes the crux of ‘Citizen Journalism’ or ‘Participatory Journalism’ in its true sense, i.e. ‘Journalism by the people, for the people’.

Official Announcement on Instablogs Live

Though 9rule Live might sound something more like “Instablogs Live“, which has been a major hit with our small but very active Instablogs Community, but I think it would be a bit similar to Netscape Tracker. Netscape Tracker gives you an updated data of new members, new comments, new submissions etc.

9rules is surely growing at a fast pace, with their round 5 submissions had the largest set of applications. They surely need much improved way of browsing through the community members, posts, notes etc, with even increasing members and posts.

Better integration of all these features will definitely drive more traffic. One thing I would like to recommend is regarding rankings of users according to his/her quantity of notes submitted. I understand this is kind of an incentive for its members who are participating and posting more notes, but I think they should code rankings page in such a way people with most popular posts/notes, receiving number of comments on the threads/notes started by them can come higher up in the rankings.

Another thing which most blog networks are missing is importance of comments and reader participation. Everyone is devising one way or the other to syndicate posts/stories across their network. Even the new B5media page is highlighting posts across the random channels. But many a times, comments are much better than the post themselves. And people posting good comments should be given more recognition and incentives. Blog networks should move more toward readers, and should think new ways for the readers who leave comments to feel more welcome.

Anyways, I am really anticipating the new 9rules. I m sure it would again boast with great set of features and improvements, and my best wishes to them.

The idea of metamorphosing our blog network Instablogs into a social network was in my mind from last 10 months or so, but we started the actual work three months back. We have launched a private beta for the new Instablogs v2.0 yesterday.

This is the official announcement:

On Instablogs 2.0, readers can form small topic-specific communities and tribes; they will find network-wide tagging and searching, a newsroom for news submission/tipping and news link picking. They would also find all the stories in the network aggregated in one place accessible via the reading room. They can also create their network of friends. They can read, rate and comment on stories. You will find features like RSS customization for any channel, topic, writer, tag, etc. You can keep track of your friends, comments and posts easily. You subscribe only those channels you want and unsubscribe others you wish not to read. Personalized homepage is another feature we are sure our members will love. However, if we have to choose our favorite feature of Instablogs v2.0, it has to be Readers’ Rewards whereby our readers can be editors for any channel of their choice.

Instablogs will be open for public on Nov 5, 2006. If any of Instamedia readers would like to beta drive the new Instablogs v2.0, send me an email to info -AT- Instablogs [dot] com.

On this Duncan Riley had to say this;

‘The money allows us to more aggressively build network into more categories. We planning on using [sic.] this money to better support our existing bloggers and recruit new bloggers in a wider array of categories. The funding also allows us to build up our ad sales team, a critical move toward giving our new investors the return we are all expecting to achieve.’

With the money in B5media coffers now, we can expect to see a lot of activity within the network, and of course lots of interesting developments in the network itself. The job that the B5media team has done in leading the blog network space is highly commendable. On behalf of Instablogs, I extend my congratulations to the B5media team and wish them all the very best for the future.

One thing I would like to mention here is this shows that blog networks losing the sheen of 2005 is notwithstanding, they still command a lot of confidence in investors. A well-maintained blog network like B5media with quality content will always have audience loyalty, which in turn will always get in more audience. This means viability for Blog networks will be there and they will continue to attract the masses and the investors alike in coming days; though I still believe major change from current network model is required.

If all this has to be changed, blog networks need to evolve. It is high time that a new generation of blog networks should arrive.
If First Generation of Blog Networks catered to bloggers, the Second Generation should cater to audience.

I am trying to compile a list, of things that should be implemented in the next generation of blog networks.

I welcome readers, bloggers, and blog network runners to add to this list.

Challenges for Next Generation of Blog networks:

1. Network Wide Tagging
Compile all posts from the network into an index of Tags. People can scan or subscribe through tags to see what’s happening across the network.

2. Single Place Aggregation: This will help readers to find aggregate content of blogs of their choice. Blog network linking, or announcement of blogs don’t help readers much in finding the content they are looking for.

3. Customized RSS: Audience should be allowed to customize their own RSS feeds by selecting tags, authors, blogs, editorials or anything. They should be in control what should get to their feed reader. No point in subscribing RSS of 10-15 blogs, which is updated once or twice a week. Let them merge all these RSS into one, and with more flexibility.

4. Readers stepping in shoes of Bloggers: Many a time you will find, comments to be more interesting and powerful then the original posts themselves. Readers should be encouraged to post on the blogs of the blog networks. Readers should be allowed to post complete entries, though some checks can be imposed.

5. Rewarding Most Active Readers: Readers can be made into Editors, depending upon their willingness and their activity level in the network. These readers can further ensure eligibility of guest articles from other readers. Readers will also feel rewarded to be an active contributor to the network.

6. Building Small Communities: Readers should be allowed to build small communities or groups in the network, which could be governed and moderated by them in terms of post, pictures, events or anything they want.

7. Readers Profiles: Most of blog networks have author profiles and bio, but the next generation of blog networks would have profiles for everyone, readers and bloggers alike.

8. Personalization by Readers: When aggregating the content in a single place, readers should be allowed to see custom aggregation depending upon the channels they would like to see of a blog network, rather than all the posts on the entire network.

9. Newsroom: Members and Readers can submit some good news-leads and news-links, for bloggers to post upon. This can work as ‘Tip Jar’, but in a more transparent form. This will also help the blogger to search for news quickly. Besides a reader will feel happy to see himself contributing more in a blog network.

10. Friends: Many communities are doing it quiet successfully - making friends with other readers and bloggers. Next-generation blog networks can easily implement that.

It is high time, blog network runners should start to think collectively so that we could learn from our past experiences and make blog networks hubs for everyone.

New softwares or plugins are needed which could plug into our existing system and enhance social and collaborative abilities of our readers and bloggers so that both can engage together and help each other to collaborate. Since, I personally feel blogs and blog networks do not compete with each other, there is enough room for everyone to grow. However, the main concern is - are we in the right room?

Feel free to add/modify any point to this list. I hope this helps us all in thinking about the much-needed evolution of blog networks into social networks.

P.S. This post is inspired from Mike Rundle’s comment he left on Blog Herald.

Quiet true, one of the blog networks SyntagmaMedia no longer liked to be called a Blog Network anymore, but a web network magazine. They have their reasons, and we have no problems to that. But the point is just calling ourselves something else, is not going to do anything different.

After the mushroom growth of Blog Networks last year, many networks have just vanished. Only a few were able to make a decent profit for themselves and for the bloggers associated with the network. These networks are happy with their old label. I am sure Jeremy Wright of B5media won`t have any problems calling themselves a blog network.

The biggest problem with the Blog Networks, is that they are just not evolving. The model of a blog network remains the same which was a year ago. For an average reader, blog network bears no significance. I would be more interested in a blog’s personal blogroll rather than a network’s blogroll. I have praises for 9rules in thinking out of box by centralizing the content on their main blog, helping the readers find the blogs of their taste in the network itself. The 9rules notes is also a good feature for readers to get more active in the network.

Today Blog Networks are fast becoming Ad Networks, no matter what they say. Categorizing blogs under a topic, is not sufficient, they need to tag each and every post on the network. Networks need to make custom RSS for the network, so that a reader is not limited to syndicate the RSS of a blog alone. Give user more control, and let him decide what to do.

And most important, Blog Network need to evolve into Social Network very soon.