David Shnaider, Former President ZDNet, Founder of Prodigy is moderating a panel called \\"Weblogs: New Syndication Models Or Uncontrolled Platforms.\\" The panelists are:
- Rafat Ali, Editor/Publisher, PaidContent.org
- Vin Crosbie, Managing Partner, Digital Deliverance
- Jeff Jarvis, President & Creative Director, Advance.net
- Elizabeth Spiers, Editor, Gawker.com
Jeff says that posting in a forum is like saying something in the bar last night. No one remembers what was said or who said it. Writing it in a weblog is like crapping in your neighbors yard. You've put you're name on it and no one will forget. Their advantages is speed, variety, voices, tools, and interactivity. Weblog tools are the cheapest fastest publishing tools with the widest potential distribution ever. Digital cameras are cheap.
Elizabeth, who writes Gawker.com tells some anecdotes about how the big media pays attention to her blog and others. Gawker is a little bit of a special case because its mostly about the media. Media is big-time narcissistic, so the fact that they read things about themselves is no surprise. My recent experiences bear this out. The media is reading blogs and quoting from them.
Rafat Ali blogs for a living at PaidContent.org. He also runs an email newsletter that is essentially the same content. He says they're complimentary. This is something I've often wondered about. He poses a question: how many of you have read a print publication on wireless? Not many hands go up. He asks: how many of you have read a blog on wireless? Many hands go up. Of course this conference is biased that way. He says:
Blog + database + research reports = big business
Blog + nothing = hobby
Vin makes the point that keeping a journal isn't a fad. People have been doing it for thousands of years. Blogs are online journals. Think of Lewis and Clark, Charles Darwin, and so on. If the net existed when they were writing, they'd be bloggers. Vin believes the media, despite their claims to the contrary now, will start to use blogs, once they understand blogs. He notes that smart media have already begun blogging.
