Wednesday, 08 July 2009

• Just a moment of your time

  Well Xanga has an undying and unyielding love for "ishes", those lovely niche market blog groupings to create online communities, they way people used to create blogrings for themselves.  And the news reporting media are trying to marry the American public's love of social media to their industry.  Journalists, who tweet on Twitter, to try and promote interest in their employer.  But when we look at the predicament facing local newspapers, we can see this approach isn't garnering the successes that had been hoped and dreamed for in this idea's inception.

  What do these two items have to do with one another?  The Xanga "ish"-sites and failing newspapers connection isn't immediately apparent.  But, it seems to me the local newspapers have forgotten what drives social media.  Andy Warhol told us about "fifteen minutes of fame" and the American public started questing for it.  In general the people don't follow local journalists the way they follow a flashy celebrity.  But, if you make it about your readership, then they will be more likely to subscribe. 

  Basically, Xanga should partner with local newspapers to create "Metro-oriented ish-sites" tied to that newspaper.  Create a basic user agreement that allows the newspaper to have first-time publication rights for selected blogs from their "Metro-ish".  Then, the newspaper assigns a junior editor to review the "Top blogs" and "Most recommended" for their specific "ish-site" in their Metro-niche.  Essentially, you restore what has been missing from a lot of papers in these past years, locally generated content.  Your readership will begin promoting the paper and the Metro-ish to their friends and family. 

  How do we prevent the abuse of having someone blog on multiple newspaper-ishes in hopes of dominating the journalistic world and thus creating a legal snafu for Xanga and the papers regarding the publication of the materials?  The basic user agreement and the requirement of the Metro designation on the user profile is a self-limiting factor on basic liabilities, putting any integrity and honesty issues back on the writer.  It is a self-correcting issue. 

  But, what could come out of this, the locally generated content that is reviewed at an editorial level with the local media restores something modern media has lost that has hurt the bottom line of these newspapers.  Community.  It is why social media is popular. A community of people that interacts and that a person can feel they are an active part of on some level.  Fifteen minutes of fame.  Maybe.  A chance to revive an interest in newspapers.  Probably.  A chance for local editorial responses, political commentary, local art, opinions and ideas relevant to the community in which your readership lives.  Definitely.    

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