Riding the Cluetrain

The 95 theses on the Cluetrain Manifesto page are true ideas that are largely in use in today’s new media world, as proved by the Web 2.0 chapter of the Journalism 2.0 article.

The Cluetrain Manifesto makes strong points that human conversation has evolved with the new Internet media market. Smaller and more informed markets are calling for honesty from larger markets, who need to lighten up. 

The Web 2.0 chapter attributes the evolution of these smaller markets to more action from users on all kinds of communication sites like Flickr, MySpace, and Google. MySpace and Flickr have reversed the traditional 1.0 model of Web sites because the content is user created to support the freedom to share while boasting decentralized authority. 

This change in the Web offers journalists new opportunities. Journalism 2.0 points out that news is a conversation, no longer a lecture. News sites like Digg are examples, since they’re comprised of news articles that users found on other sites and then posted on Digg. Journalists’ blogs are also good examples of news conversation; journalists can respond to comments online and even get new story ideas from their readers.

Former Seattle P.I. reporter John Cook has found user created applications for new media like tagging in photos and blogs to his advantage. As a journalist he can speed his work by tracking and finding information that readers of his topics find interesting.

The Cluetrain Manifesto urges companies to involve themselves in the direct online conversation that everyone else is already participating in. If they don’t, it’s their loss and it could be a big one. 

Through all of this communication I feel news will become more broadly defined. It’s not necessarily a negative change though. Readers have easier access to reporters, so they can make it obvious the type of news they want to read. By reading comments on their own stories, or by reading the kinds of stories that are posted on sites like Digg, it should become more clear to reporters the exact information that readers are looking for on news sites. 

The Cluetrain Manifesto has it right and we’re invoking the small business-minded ideas presented there through the highly personalized news media conversations of today.

Reflection on articles

“What’s Really Wrong With Newspapers” provided a lot of reasons for the decline of the newspaper industry in the U.S. and I agree with the points made. It’s hard to argue with the fact that newspapers change their content to appeal to new readers and that they’re more in the business of desperately preserving what they have than trying to expand or change their papers for the better. These failures on the part of the newspaper industry contribute to keeping the greater part of our country uninformed and therefor hurt our democracy as a whole.

“No More Free Content” also makes many good points with regard to business in the news industry. I hadn’t really thought before of how much media content I consume is actually free for me. I did know that most revenue for newspapers comes from advertising but I didn’t really think about how the subscription fee is really just for delivery. However, no matter how free newspapers and AM and FM radio and TV news stations are, those newspapers still need to make money from advertising. It’s upsetting to think about newspapers losing their advertisers to the digital world and in turn putting out a smaller paper with less local content that is read by less people for more money per issue. The phrase “It’s a vicious circle” sums it up perfectly. The followup article adds a bit to the gloom by bringing up the point that digital media sources have an even greater advantage because they know how well their advertisements work and which ones work. Newspapers have to out on a limb and predict which of their ads are being noticed by readers and hope for the best, while getting fewer and fewer advertisers along the way.