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Hot boil over blogs given the Kathy Sierra fiasco.
Tim senses a branding opportunity that pisses off Jeff, who'd rather deal with the real world, warts and all.
So whats the deal here? Well, this has come up a lot recently, including at a Social Media Club event at a local TV station. The issue was around collaboration between professional media outlets and hyper-local web video that could share story assignments. Read more ...
Strange for me - don't usually get caught between such personalities, as I'm more of a financial geek than rabid opportunist.
Jeff's clearly right about Tim's motivation, and that given the ways blogs work now, its a dismal approach - but its one that sells with the press right now, who are angry about bloggers they perceive as killing newspapers that keep them alive.
ironically, Tim's not doing them any favors - but of course, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". The press is stupid, both in enemy and in friend. Craigslist took the classifieds, and that was the real newspaper "killer".
This came up at Social Media Club's event, which lead with Craigslist killing the papers, so why not avoid this with local TV by forming a partnership between in community web video news/content providers where story assignment could return a product that both web and TV could vend.
In this case, standards of conduct make it possible to cross over a similar work product, while branding this conduct allows the growth of a category of local journalism of a common, dependable quantity. Unlike Tim's idea, the scope was intentionally narrow, simply to address a necessary business need so as to allow a potential partnership.
But as Jeff points out, by its existence, such a code of any sort can be used as a weapon, even if unintended.
So if the web is to retain its varied color and form, what do we do to span the gap between traditional media and web media? Can we just make for intentionally narrow branding and bull ahead, or do we end up unintentionally backing Tim 's view and bringing down the walls.
Don't doubt that Jeff Jarvis is right about control of the uncontrollable, which is why Tim's proposal is impossible. He's done a disservice in the appearance of doing a service, because by placing something unworkable on the agenda, other approaches lose out without examination.
Won't try to speak to this, because the issue is dead. But the "wild west" nature of the web, with its uncontrollable disruption kills also emerging business opportunities that help to sort out the economic relationship between traditional and web media - which can't be good for any.
But forcing incompetent standards to take advantage of a tragedy certainly won't go anywhere either.