Feb. 25

I do appreciate the efforts of the founder of Spot.Us. I think it is noble to take risks in this current journalism crisis to find an alternative that will survive. I do not, however, think this is an appropriate business model that is going to work. I could be completely wrong, but honestly hope that I am not. I don't feel comfortable with news organizations strictly producing content based off of what the consumer is willing to pay for, isn't that what got us into this mess? Of course no one can really peg what created the Britney Spears-style news coverage. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? But I feel that creating content based off of a $10 donation just isn't going to cut it. And yes, he does point this out in the article that this model may not work, which for the sake of figuring out one that does work I'm glad Spot.Us is out there, but I don't think it is something that I would want to use.
In "Curating the Web" I'm not exactly sure what is going on. Maybe would could discuss this more in class. From my understanding, and I could be right or wrong on this one, is that this author's business model is to just have a Web site that links to various sources around set topics. This makes sense to me, and I agree that it would shake up the boring AP wire that most news organizations rely too much on. But I'm not sure what Korr was talking about when he said individual journalists could do this also. I see the importance of linking to related stories on a journalist's blog but I'm not sure if I was following it all.
In "No Time Left..." I thought the AP's willingness to understand young readers fascinating. I love that they used anthro. studies to figure out reading patterns -- very smart. I was a little surprised by their finding that readers wanted more. I've always been under the impression that young readers like short, concise blog posts that were updated constantly. But I can see that there is a lacking of background information that is needed to understand the constant stream of information coming at us all the time. I think that in many business models this could be helped by updating archieve abilities and linking to related stories.
In "A Retired Newspaper Journalists..." I was excited to read about the hyperlocal site that he started up, in Final Draft that is what we are hoping to do. Though, I am sure there must be a way to make money off of it. I really enjoyed this piece, as it pertained to what we are hoping to accomplish. I did take notice of what he said about not getting local writers or comments like he wanted to, I hadn't really thought of that happening. Being young, we just assumed that everyone would want to participate so I guess we'll have to come up with alternative plans to combat that when it happens. Perhaps we'll stick with our original Plan B in all cases -- hire lots of interns to work for free. Lots of them.