From Jon Garfunkel on March 17, 2006 at 12:26 AM
Another off-headline. No one made the suggestion that the so-called MSM is "winning"; the suggestion from Weinberger was that it wasn't the question.
I think what you mean is, does the data suggest winner-take-all? Sifry doesn't want it to be. And I don't think it is-- but we can use the data from the NEC study of 4 years ago in Modeling the Web, which explains the different distributions for different niches.
To Sifry's credit, he does point out that the main threat is not to general interest publications (aka "the MSM") but to trade publishers. And the reasons to me are obvious-- the trade pubs have a much fuzzier line separating editorial and business and PR, as well as the dominant publishing schedule of once a week or more. So the NYT or CNN have less to worry about blogs than trade publishers.
Now the blog era is bearing upon us. My question from the new gatekeepers series was essentially this, for a given niche, who's at the top? Should it be a solitary blogger or a group publication? And my conclusion was that the solitary bloggers are no more fair as gatekeepers than traditional publishers are. If we want to encourage fairness-- the aim of many media reformers-- I propose that structural measures are much more central than the good will of an independent publisher.
That said, alot of the technical trade press has been ahead of the curve on introducing participatory features, beyond blogs. (I do have the data to show this and I'm sorry it's not ready yet-- this has been research I first mentioned to Robert several weeks back.) Furthermore, in my specific field, I've noticed the publisher ebizQ take some solitary bloggers under its fold. The one nice thing about being the trade press is that money and audience come easier, so it's easier to pull in independent bloggers (if there's an existing trade press, granted).
BTW, my trouble with Sifry's data and his interpretations are threefold. First of all, he's basic aim to market blogs and propel Technorati as a necessary service. For example, Slashdot is not deemed blogworthy enough and labelled MSM. Second, the use of inbound links as a measure has been criticized, and Weinberger even conceded the criticism in the comments to his post. Lastly, there have been longstanding complaints about Technorati's abuse of the word "authority" when they ought to be using the more neutral word "influence."
Another off-headline. No one made the suggestion that the so-called MSM is "winning"; the suggestion from Weinberger was that it wasn't the question.
I think what you mean is, does the data suggest winner-take-all? Sifry doesn't want it to be. And I don't think it is-- but we can use the data from the NEC study of 4 years ago in Modeling the Web, which explains the different distributions for different niches.
To Sifry's credit, he does point out that the main threat is not to general interest publications (aka "the MSM") but to trade publishers. And the reasons to me are obvious-- the trade pubs have a much fuzzier line separating editorial and business and PR, as well as the dominant publishing schedule of once a week or more. So the NYT or CNN have less to worry about blogs than trade publishers.
Now the blog era is bearing upon us. My question from the new gatekeepers series was essentially this, for a given niche, who's at the top? Should it be a solitary blogger or a group publication? And my conclusion was that the solitary bloggers are no more fair as gatekeepers than traditional publishers are. If we want to encourage fairness-- the aim of many media reformers-- I propose that structural measures are much more central than the good will of an independent publisher.
That said, alot of the technical trade press has been ahead of the curve on introducing participatory features, beyond blogs. (I do have the data to show this and I'm sorry it's not ready yet-- this has been research I first mentioned to Robert several weeks back.) Furthermore, in my specific field, I've noticed the publisher ebizQ take some solitary bloggers under its fold. The one nice thing about being the trade press is that money and audience come easier, so it's easier to pull in independent bloggers (if there's an existing trade press, granted).
BTW, my trouble with Sifry's data and his interpretations are threefold. First of all, he's basic aim to market blogs and propel Technorati as a necessary service. For example, Slashdot is not deemed blogworthy enough and labelled MSM. Second, the use of inbound links as a measure has been criticized, and Weinberger even conceded the criticism in the comments to his post. Lastly, there have been longstanding complaints about Technorati's abuse of the word "authority" when they ought to be using the more neutral word "influence."