A few of my favorite things
Today I’m talking about two of my favorite things – building digital communities and citizen journalism!! Actually, I like how Jeff Jarvis calls it “networked journalism” because that’s a more accurate term, especially in this day and age.
Right now, we’re in the relaunch phase of a product whose mission is now defined as “fabric of community life.” I like to think of it as hitting that strata of information that falls directly under what traditional journalism has the time or resources to cover. It’s what you share with friends at the neighborhood party. Think “little j, big C”.
There are a lot of people trying to do this kind of project, and I think the jury is still out on whether a niche site can prosper formed around a geographical area. The plusses, as I see them, may also be the minuses: People are creating, reporting, their own news more than ever, because many platforms now exist on which to do that. All we have to do now is ditch the “build it and they will come” mentality and replace it with a “become part of the hyperlocal news ecosystem” mentality.
I think there are alot of good things coming for csfreshink.com. More on this soon.
