MediaVidea

The 9 models of Bloggers’ Collectives

David Cohn at New Assignment wrote about the evolution of what he calls ‘Citizen Networks’, when bloggers come together – propagating a cause, sharing information, group writing and so on.

Often, informal Citizen Networks come into being during times of crisis or tragedy, such as the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech.

Group blogging often bring more credibility to the project at hand. David writes,

‘A (lonely) blog is only as credible as the individual behind it.’

It is not too fantastic to imagine a future of thriving bloggers’ collectives, rivaling the likes of the New York Times in the credibility stakes, as being ‘blogs of record’, so to speak.

Here is a short list of models for bloggers’ collectives:
1. Global Voices: a major source of original reporting by bloggers all over the world.

2. Assignment Zero/New Assignment: Pioneering Pro-Am journalism. Not a collective in the real sense but most contributors may have their own blogs as well.

3. The Blogcritic model: online magazines run by group of bloggers.

4. Desipundit: A group of Indian bloggers who submit interesting links (about India) throughout the day,.

5. Blog networks: Bloggers’ answer to mainstream media, often running into 100 or more blogs. Mostly run by one publisher, quality is an issue.

6. Mybloglog: Tries to create network of like-minded bloggers, often misused for spam purposes.

7. Group writing projects: Popularized by the likes of popular Problogger blog, where bloggers write on a chosen topic, often for traffic or a prize.

8. Katrinalist, Tsuanmi help type sites: updated by anyone (often moderated) with the latest useful information.

A proposal: a Digg version of New Assignment
Pre-populate it with set of issues, letting users add new issues, rate on stories, among other things. A section on ‘news items that need extended/investigative coverage - the more votes it gets, the better its chances of being explored further.

Labels: Blog networks, citizen journalism

posted by Pramit Singh @ 3:38 PM