Mashalist

Mashup Ecosystem vs. the PC

I'm dubious of articles with the words "poised to explode" in the headline, but this piece by David Berlind is worth the read.

Video From Iraq: Great Journalism, But Not an "Alternative Product"

I got the chills this afternoon watching Iraq video produced by soldiers in Iraq and hosted by YouTube. Thanks to Mark Glaser for pointing this out.

After watching the videos from Iraq, Rich Skrenta’s post about citizen journalism caught my eye:

The key to understanding what is working in "Citizen Journalism" is that they're first-person accounts. Journalists are professional observers and interpreters; they watch, and report back to the wider audience. But just like stockbrokers and travel agents, the Internet is again cutting out the intermediary.

… [professional journalism] costs a huge amount to bring to market, and what the Internet enables is a an alternative product built for zero, and providing a different value proposition. Citizen journalism is going to be more Citizens and less Journalism.

Wait a sec. Those videos from Iraq are great. So were the first-person accounts of the depressurized Alaska Airlines flight and the London Underground bombings. But none of this is an “alternative product.”

Professional journalism strives to provide the full context of a story. Citizen journalism -- at least first-person type that Rich describes –- is different. It goes deep on one particular piece of the story.

Jeremy Hermanns' post about Alaska Airlines flight 536 is the best account of what happened on that airplane that you're going to find. But to hear the rest of the story -- what the NTSB had to say, what Alaska Airlines had to say -- you have to read the Seattle PI.

First-person citizen journalism is not a replacement for professional journalism, it’s a complement.

News Aggregators, Do the World a Favor. Start Consolidating.

Paul Montgomery put together a great list earlier this week of news rebundlers and aggregators.

When you see all these sites on the same page, you have to wonder, who uses them all?

It’s fantastic to see so many new ways of accessing news (or is it new ways of allocating attention?). In aggregate, the functionality of these sites makes it much easier to spend your time reading relevant, quality content than it was, say, a year ago.

That said, we’ll all be better off when these features find their way into Bloglines or its successor. Who has time to bounce between Findory, Newsvine, Google News, Topix, Gather and whoever else launched this week?

One other thing: I think this aggregation herd is a good thing for the MSM and the online newspaper crowd.

With all the agile little tech startups focused on microchunking and rebundling content, the slower newspapers have had time to focus on ways they can use technology to improve the content they create.

Now, on regular basis, papers are producing cool stuff like Adrian’s Alito database and Nick Kristof’s videos from the streets of Calcutta.

The challenge for these old-school news sites is to pick up the pace and build a stronger position before the herd turns towards their tuff, content creation.

And the herd is already making that turn. Read what somebody from Newsvine posted in the comments on Om Malik’s piece on this topic:

Pretty soon, you’ll be able to post an article from a baseball game using nothing but your Treo. Or upload audio you recorded from the subway before you’ve even exited the subway. Or post a live poll asking users to react to a story you just published. These sorts of things change the way news is reported and not just consumed, and that’s what makes it all the more interesting.

It’s going to be a long, long time before Newsvine replaces Nick Kristof, but once the rebundlers start consolidating, they’ll be headed in that direction.

Google Adds Ads to Maps

ClickZ and David Galbraith point out that Google is testing contextual ads plotted on local maps. You'll see the ads if you search for hotels in New York. They don't appear when you search for hotels in San Francisco.

This is a great new feature for Google's local site. The question is, how will the API handle these ads if they are fully rolled out?

As I mentioned a while ago, it would be great if Google creates an AdSense for Maps program that would allow mashup makers to choose their own level of advertising. That would give developers a way to monetize their mashups and it wouldn't upset existing mashups.

On the other hand, as Adrian has pointed out, it would be terrible if G shoves the ads down everybody's throat, focing the ads into mashups where they aren't welcome. There would be such a huge backlash to that move, that it's hard to imagine them doing it.

Either way, it would be nice to have a post on the GMaps blog to let everybody know what Google's current thinking is.