Online Media Cultist

The TechCrunch 50 versus DEMO battle is raging.

What’s interesting to me this morning is the part of the story that is developing on places like Twitter and UStream.tv.

In fact, I believe it was Michael Arrington’s comment that “DEMO must die” on Twitter that kicked off the wave of coverage this morning.

As the media wave ramped up, Jason Calacanis then announced on Twitter that it was time to head over to Ustream.tv for an “emergency meeting” of the “Jason Nation.” Calacanis partners with Arrington on TechCrunch 50 so it’s not hard to imagine which side he is on.

Calacanis, with his 15,000+ Twitter followers, managed to bring more than 300 people to the impromptu live streaming event on Ustream.

I will now present some choice Calacanis quotes from the meeting, which speak for themselves:

“Entrepreneurs are being asked to pay $18,500 for 6 minutes on stage. BOOO! That’s right it’s terrible. It’s so ridiculous that DEMO is charging that much.”

“We at Jason Nation need to stand up to this abusive practice”

“TechCrunch50 does not abuse the entrepreneurs. We are entrepreneurs ourselves. Can I get an amen?”

“We will not stand for the abuse of our fellow entrepreneurs.”

“Conference payola is wrong!”

“They had 60 or 70 companies last year pay that fee. It’s criminal!”

“The power of Calacanis compels you!”

More than the Tech Crunch 50 v. DEMO battle royale, I’m fascinated by the way in which services like Twitter and Ustream are shaping communication, collaboration, and media coverage.

There’s lots of strong negative reaction amongst the blogospheric pontificators this morning (including some I have great respect for such as Mathew Ingram and Fred of A VC) to a Jason Calacanis piece entitled Web 3.0, the official definition.

I wrote a piece this morning supporting the definition and in fact saw nothing remotely controversial in it.

Here’s what I just commented on Ingram’s story:

Are people becoming too concerned with the *semantics* web?

I understand that Mr. Calacanis excels at drumming up controversy and blogospheric conversations, but I’m surprised at the reactions to this.

Maybe I’m just more comfortable with throwing loose labels around than others, but I see zero that’s controversial in Jason’s definition, and in fact think it’s right on. Web technology is more or less commoditized today, therefore the best ideas and execution of those ideas will tend to win out over the next few years. That’s my take as well.

Now, maybe the semantic web (or the “whatever web”) will be Web 3.0 *or* Web 4.0 or whatever, but does that really matter?

Sure, Jason’s “official” definition is a bold assertion, and of course the story that he’s preaching will make room for Mahalo’s (Calacanis’ latest project) success, but who cares?

The term “web 2.0″ has been around for several years now, and has over time evolved to represent the current state of the modern Internet. It’s a ubiquitous term that can apply to things like the social networking phenomenon, fancy “drag-and-drop” applications powered by AJAX, the much reviled term “user generated content,” and even an over-arching design aesthetic (super simple and clean) right down to a now hyper-clichéd logo and site name (you’re screaming to your audience that you’re web 2.0 if you drop a vowel from your site name and make one of the consonants a different color!).

So in a very general sense sites/services like MySpace and Digg and GMail and YouTube represent the web 2.0 era, even if we can argue that most of the underlying technology has been around for years. The point is that these are sites that got massive numbers of people to use this technology and form communities around these services

Over time people have started to muse about what a “web 3.0″ world might look like. Jason Calacanis basically nails it today, echoing a consensus that has sprung up from conversations that I’ve had with colleagues over the last several months:

Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform. […]

Web 2.0 services are now the commoditized platform, not the final product. In a world where a social network, wiki, or social bookmarking service can be built for free and in an instant, what’s next?

The thing to know about today’s web software development environment is that everyone is playing with basically the same set of tools. No one really has “better technology” to use and deploy than anyone else anymore, and likely this will never be the case in the future.

What that means is that good ideas that meet market needs, that give people the right solution to the right problem at the right time, OR the right service to the right need at the right time, will be the web 3.0 winners.

I see all of this as great news for the continued evolution of the Internet. The barrier to entry is lower than ever, and great ideas have the opportunity to dominate the marketplace when executed with precision.

Again with the studies and the misreading of the modern online media environment.

A Reuters story cites a study which declares that user interaction on “web 2.0″ sites “remains weak” and “is far less participatory than commonly assumed.” Stats to back up this claim include .16 percent of YouTube users upload video and .2 percent of Flickr users upload pictures. The study does however grant that somehow, “despite relatively low user involvement, visits to Web 2.0-style sites have spiked 688 percent in two years,” according to Bill Tancer from Hitwise.

This proclamation of weakness is, well, weak.

Here’s why:

* First things first: web 2.0 = the Internet. There’s very little use in differentiating “web 2.0″ websites from the rest of the Internet. If you can leave comments, if you can upload media, if you can personalize a search function in any way, if you can set up a profile of some kind, you’re in web 2.0 land.

* They’re forgetting the 80-19-1 rule. I picked up on this rule from Jason Calacanis, and although it relates to social news sites like Digg and Netscape, I’ve found it very useful in framing the way in which online communities in general tend to operate. The first part states that 80 percent of an online community will never participate, and will be content simply to consume information or entertainment content.

* The 19 percent part is where the study (and its coverage) really misses the mark. According to Jason’s rule, 19% of a community will interact in some way, whether it be leaving comments, or perhaps taking part in voting or ranking on a social news site like Netscape.

What about the 900 million people who have a MySpace and/or Facebook and/or Bebo and/or some other social networking profile, you ask? Aren’t those good folk “participating” on “web 2.0″ sites by browsing profiles and friending and posting pictures and prancing and cavorting and flirting and so on?

The answer would be a big fat yes. Just because media uploads are concentrated into a relatively small group on YouTube and Flickr doesn’t mean that huge numbers of millions of people aren’t actively interacting with the Internet i.e “web 2.0″ sites.

* And what of the 1 percent, or the power users? Those uploading media on YouTube and submitting stories to Digg are the engines that keep those web platforms afloat. However, that the study doesn’t take into account the 19-percenters who comment and vote and rank and set up profiles on these sites is surprising.

I couldn’t sleep early this morning and wound up catching up on all manner of web geekery (you get extra points for web geekery on the weekend, I find, and triple if it’s before 8 am) when I was struck by something that Jason Calacanis said on CalacanisCast, with reference to Weblogs, Inc., the blog network that he founded:

We broke out when we went to a multi-brand strategy.

This is something that I think about a lot at Blogcritics (where I’m exec producer): how to take a highly (but not massively) successful online magazine of 1,800 writers and two million+ monthly page views (on pace to hit three million this month!) to the vaunted “next level.”

Now, I know that Jason’s (correct) argument is that Weblogs grew to be massively successful because it hit the consumer channels – web gadgets, cars, gaming, gossip – where there was already demand online. To do this, Weblogs found talented writers and paid them to be stars within their sphere, and then paid for advertising to draw readers on the hope that they would stick around and spread the word themselves.

Blogcritics began slowly embarking on a “multi-brand strategy” of its own in 2006 with the launch of Desicritics, a “spin-off” of the Blogcritics model (lots of volunteer writers, a bunch of editors, and a massive content publishing system developed by our whiz of a Technical Director, Phillip Winn) that focuses on India and South Asia.

In 2007, the pace of this strategy has both quickened greatly and changed to some extent. If Blogcritics and Desicritics can be thought of as online magazines or group blogs (we prefer the former!), the new batch of sites are more like “sole proprietorships,” where we turn over the reins to a highly motivated and talented writer who is looking to focus on a niche area of content. The ideal people for such gigs are not only talented and savvy in their area of expertise, but they are also self-promoters and online entrepreneurs in their own right.

So as you might guess the tricky part is finding the right people to run BC network (that’s what we call our blog network) sites. The great and tremendous advantage of being part of a strong grassroots online community that has been around for 4+ years is that our talent pool is rich and deep. Which is lucky too because unlike Weblogs, Blogcritics doesn’t have a budget to pay BC network publishers a salary – all the more reason for the need for self-motivated online entrepreneurs of the first rate!

Despite this challenge, the BC network is growing and has been a huge success thus far. Glosslip, helmed by Dawn Olsen, is a deliciously gossipy dream, bringing cutting sarcasm and real writing chops to the crowded but galactically enormous gossip space. BC Goodie Bag, run by the multi-talented Anna Creech, is a showcase of video clips and other fun schwag from around the Interwebs. And Josh Hathoway’s Confessions of a Fanboy (or COAF, as I like to call it) is a delightful and manic exploration of music and the mind of the music addict.

Then there’s little old Online Media Cultist, the latest BC network venture. While I’d love to have three million page views straight out of the gate (and wouldn’t we all?) I’m extremely pleased with how things are going thus far. The comments have been great, and I can’t tell you how much fun it is to chat about webby goings on.

The next phase of the BC network rollout is ambitious, with sites covering independent film, television, theater, comics, politics (a big announcement coming here down the road) and one or two others I can’t think of at the moment in the works.

So the challenge here is to reach multi-brand success without start-up capital (read = ability to pay writers or buy advertising). Because of the experience and expertise of the Blogcritics organization in the blog space and its pool of homegrown talent, I believe that the model is there to be not just highly but massively successful.

And whatever the case, it’s a hell of a fun ride!

The biggest fallacy that social news sites like Digg perpetrate is that their voting systems are organic, run by the community, that every story has an equal chance – based upon its merits – to reach the front page and find acclaim, and so on. It’s just not true, and likely never will be. The problem is that the more popular a social news site gets, there are that many more people submitting stories, that many more people trying to rig or manipulate the system to their benefit.

So it behooves social news sites to continually tweak the rules to appease each of its groups of users. I really like former-Netscape General Manager Jason Calacanis’ 80-19-1 rule here. This states that 80 percent of your audience will never participate (they will simply consume information), 19 percent will partake in such activities as voting and commenting, and one percent are your hard core users: the engine that keeps social news sites alive by submitting volumes of stories and participating in all parts of the site.

So the “big three” of social news sites – Digg, Reddit, and Netscape – all do tweak the rules, but Digg in particular is cagey about this, always harkening back to how the community rules the kingdom.

The truth is though that many people feel that a small group of “power users” controls a high percentage of stories that reaches Digg’s front page. Therefore, it can be construed that the community has relatively little influence on Digg at all, that a small oligarchy of sorts actually forms the editorial board that selects the stories that hit the front page (and therefore finds a huge audience of readers) each day.

Brian Carr, in “Is Digg Broken Beyond Repair?” asserts that Digg’s top 25 “power users” control as much as 70% of what reaches the front page. He then offers four solutions to “break” the oligarchy. Three of these, in my view, aren’t all that useful as they involve voting for spam, not voting at all, or boycotting the submissions process.

One solution though does point to the reality of the modern popular social news site: create alliances. Digg itself allows for this in that you can add friends to your profile. Theoretically, people can visit their friends’ profiles each day and vote for stories submitted by each one. However, the line here between friendly cooperation and “gaming” the system can get somewhat hazy.

But the fact is that for a story to have any chance at all of reaching Digg’s front page, it needs some level of pre-determined support. Once Digg publicly confronts this reality, it will be able to better respond to the complexities manifested by its own success.

Lots of great stuff coming out of Twitter (the wunderkind short, simple, and snappy tool that lets you post 140-character maximum rants, pontifications, links, and random musings about personal peccadilloes to groups of “followers”), I may have to make Twitters of the Day a regular feature.

Jason Calacanis: correcting WSJ errors at my blog. uhhhh…. dont even work there anymore and i’m fighting the good fight. i guess i need to let it go huh?

Jason is referring to his spirited defense against a Wall Street Journal piece that claims that Netscape traffic is way down since the switch over to the “new” social news-driven platform (which I have declared, with its problems and all, is the future of news). Like many arguments, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle on this one. That said, Netscape is a perfect choice to continue to lead out a broad-based general audience social news experiment. I just wish that their editors were a little less trigger happy on editing/yanking submissions and would more closely cooperate with submitters and publishers, without whom the site would have no content.

Bloggers Blog: Will newspapers/magazines make all the journalists Twitter like they made them blog?

There are a bunch of great and interesting and probing questions that sweep Twitter everyday. I think this one is a little bit tongue-and-cheek but I do think it likely that some journalists will get on board with Twitter before too long. We may see reporters in battle zones giving live on-the-ground snippets, anchors at the desk musing about life on the news set during commercial breaks, and solicitations for questions prior to interviews. Pretty cool stuff in other words, and it all lies ahead.

Bloggers Blog: Poor Han Solo. Darth Vader is crushing him in followers 1250 to 56

Bloggers Blog delivered the goods today! There are a bunch of fake Twitter profiles, which I see as a sign of the site’s health and popularity. I haven’t friended any of them yet, so if any of them are particularly funny, please let me know.

Robert Scoble: I told Dave to pop up some Starbucks ads on TwitterVision just to freak everyone out. http://twittermap.com/twittervision — I’m addicted.

Ah, that rascally Scobleizer. TwitterVision is a site to behold, a really easy and mesmerizing way to see how this simple little product is providing yet another short cut to instant and immersive (and even substantive, sometimes!) conversation between friends and followers and lurkers around the globe.

Drop me a line at my Twitter page. You’ll be hooked before long!

After a brief and fleeting spell of ambivalence, I was sucked straight into the depths of the Twitter vortex, the finger-snapping, trigger-happy, easy-to-use “mini-blogging” application that lets you send short messages to your group of “followers” via web, IM, or SMS. At its essence – I’ve spent some time thinking about this – I think that Twitter is yet another shortcut to meeting the compelling need for people to express themselves and partake in the ever quickening Internet conversation.

It’s really simple and really easy too, which always helps and usually is at the heart of great and powerful tools and products. Sign up, add a friend or two, compel one or two people to “follow” your words of infinite wisdom (say whatever you want in answer to the question “What are you doing now?” just making sure it’s under the 140 character limit) and you are on your way.

The more I play with Twitter, I think it’s a keeper.

Another theory: Twitter may be a tool that particularly attracts those who already blog and are therefore already used to publishing online and interested in both attracting and audience and entering the Internet conversation. While I spend a lot of time looking at social networks such as MySpace, I never find a great and compelling reason to stick around. I particularly like MyBlogLog because it’s a great networking tool for bloggers (and an experience that lives outside the site through the use of its great blog log widget), but it’s simply not fun in the way that Twitter can be.

Other Twitter thoughts, culled over the weekend:

* Twitter has the potential to replace your RSS reader. It’s fun to get Mashable and Wired and Techmeme updates via Twitter, and lots of people simply send links around, which becomes a hyperkinetic and viral method of information sharing.

* I’m apt to add twitter friends that I wouldn’t add to my rss reader. Twitter’s an outstanding way to get the shorthand thoughts and tid bits from blogging luminaries (or whomever, it’s up to you!) that you don’t have time to read on a regular basis. For example, I don’t read Dave Winer’s or Robert Scoble’s respective blogs, but I’ve enjoyed following their Twitter conversations thus far.

* Twitter has fake profiles. These include Borat, Darth Vader, Bill Clinton, and fake Jason Calacanis and Nick Denton profiles. I take this is yet another sign that the Twitter aquiver with buzz. Take note that the John Edwards page is real!

* Lots of Twitter supporting sites/tools popping up. I’ll just mention one here, because it deserves some attention. Twittervision is a mesmerizing Google Maps mashup that lets you watch Twitter messages emerge all across the globe in real time. If you like Digg Spy, you’ll like Twittervision.

* Bold proclamations. Jason Calacanis declares that 90% of his blogging will now be delivered via Twitter. Personally, I love Twitter for its capacity for “casual” blogging, which gives you the ability to loosen up and say whatever you want without worrying overly much about spelling, grammar, or coherence. Blogging is a place to be a bit more structured and meaningful. Of course Twitter and blogs are merely platforms and the great thing is that everybody can help define them.

* Great quotes. I’ve seen some great quotes just over the last few days.

From Steve Rubel:
* JCal [Jason Calacanis] will become the first blogger to turn a full-time Twitterer
* Great businesses and greater ideas will begin as conversations on Twitter.

From Jason Calacanis:
* Who’s building a twitter/google adsense widget? I need to monetize this medium before [Nick] Denton.
* Twitter is like cb radio without the static

* Are people talking about Twitter? That would be a 10-4, as this chart displaying the “twitterfication of the blogosphere” shows.

I just realized that Blogger allows you to add tags to blog posts.

Actually, I must give credit where it’s due and that belongs to my online pal and fellow member of Blogcritics Magazine and The Mondo Project, Mat Brewster. I’ve seen tags appear on blogspot blogs countless times, I’m sure, but absolutely assumed that they were part of some fancy plug-in that was not for the likes of me.

Part of my reintroduction to blogging from my own site on Blogger (as opposed to writing exclusively for BC, which I did for about a year) is that I’ve been able to better tune in to how bloggers are organizing themselves and their information, promoting themselves, and building audience.

This post is a bit of an experiment. Since I started posting here regularly since the first of the year, I’ve noticed that the majority of my traffic comes from the following sources:

* MyBlogLog: A great networking site for bloggers, it also helps to bring in some traffic.

* Techmeme: Great great source for following current tech and online media stories and the conversations springing up around them. I’ve been able to hit this page a nice number of times, and have brought back some visitors because of it.

* Blogcritics Magazine: Cross-publishing at the old battleship BC absolutely has a positive effect on one’s “home site” bottom line.

* Search traffic: mostly Google.com, but drips and drabs from Yahoo!, Ice Rocket (I think mentioning Mark Cuban’s name helps, which is indeed worthy of another experiment!), and Google Blog Search.

Search traffic is that great randomizer. If you can pull lots of it, you can sail off to Tahiti for six months and still have rip roaring traffic stats when you get back. If you don’t, it’s a grind-it-out battle to itch and scratch each reader home for supper.

This is somewhat the topic of a raging debate of the online moment, with entrepreneur and provocateur Jason Calacanis setting off fireworks with talk of SEO (search engine optimization, or rigging one’s code to harness more search engine traffic) being “bullshit” and a swift and immediate blowback from the likes of Neil Patel following, who challenges Jason to allow him to increase his own traffic “by a minimum of 10 to 20% after 30 days of putting my changes into effect” with promises of no shady dealings on route. And it seems Jason has accepted – the great SEO throwdown is on!

In any event, without being shady (I know so little about code that this would be very difficult anyway!) and as openly as I can, I’ve placed a nice number of wide ranging links and references here that hopefully add up to nearly a coherent whole.

I’ve listed the following blog tags as part of this post: blogger, blog, blogs, google, search, SEO, ice rocket, mark cuban, google blog search, techmeme, mybloglog, blogcritics, jason calacanis, neil patel, page rank

So the questions are: did I “optimize” this post by writing a decent piece and linking out to fellow bloggers and engagers in the online conversation? Or will dropping a deluge of tags at the bottom help auto-magically bring home some visitors? Or, perhaps, did none of this pile up to a hill of e-beans in the vast vacuum of the blogospheric realm?

I’ll report back the results, and look forward to your thoughts.

Growing up on Long Island, it was my daily ritual to grab whatever part of Newsday I could get my hands on to read during breakfast. These days, I have my laptop and while I do a cursory scan of the news headlines (and typically get a shot of politics via ABC.com’s The Note), it’s the online media blogs that have emerged as the places I spend most of my reading time.

Compiling a Top 10 list was both easier and more difficult than I thought it was going to be. My favorite of favorites were quick plucks, but near the bottom of the list it got rough going as to who would make the final few slots.

This list of course reflects my own interests and passions, which include: online media and the web 2.0 world in general, blogging-as-profession, the blogosphere, social news, social networking, the MSM-blogospheric convergence, start-up culture, and online entrepreneurship.

I’ll try to update this list over time to see what additions and changes may be warranted.

#1 - mathewingram.com/work - Mathew Ingram
Ingram, a technology writer with The Globe and Mail in Toronto, combines the best elements of journalism with the best of the blogosphere, making for a smart, interesting, and opinionated take on news related to a wide range of online media- and tech-related issues. I find I most often agree with Mathew’s takes, which occasionally are controversial, so more than anything this is the case of an online publication that perfectly suits me, the reader. That more than anything is a wonderful endorsement of the blogosphere and online media as Long Island (and, now, Pasadena) is a long way away from Toronto!

#2 - The Jason Calacanis Weblog
Jason Calacanis is fun to follow. Former CEO of Weblogs Inc. and “relauncher” of Netscape as new styled social news engine, Jason is for the moment an “Entrepreneur in Action” for Sequoia Capital. He also can’t help but write brief, passionate, and decidedly outside-the-norm opinions on a wide array of subjects. From following his blog babies from Weblogs to strategizing the LA housing market (no easy feat!) to making an impassioned blogospheric plea regarding the Genarlow Wilson case, this is a must read blog for ambitious bloggers and online media cultists.

#3 - TechCrunch - Michael Arrington
TechCrunch has become something of the daily online newspaper for all things web 2.0. This is the preeminent place to find out what start ups are up to and what moves the big guys are making in the online space. Arrington is opinionated and occasionally self-inflated, but the information that he pumps out day-after-day makes TechCrunch an absolute must to stay afloat in the 2.0-ish rapid currents.

#4 - Mashable! - Pete Cashmore
Mashable! has evolved into a TechCrunch for those interested in social networking and the massive changes going on in that space. No one else keeps up with the dizzying myriad of social networking, widgeting, and third party add-ons like Cashmore and Mashable!

#5 - ProBlogger Blog Tips - Darren Rowse
Yet another must read for bloggers, this is Blogging 101 for bloggers who are serious about increasing readership and making money from self-publishing online content (extremely difficult feats, both). It helps greatly that Darren is relentlessly positive and upbeat and provides a steady stream of tips, updates, and strategies for the blogging life. He’s also deeply enmeshed in the community side of things, which is certainly leading by example!

#6 - BC Magazine – Sci/Tech - Phillip Winn, Daniel Woolstencroft, Steve Wild, Raoul Pop, Diane Kristine, Bruce Kratofil, John Vaccaro, and many others!
I can’t leave out my brethren and sistren over at BC Magazine’s Sci/Tech section. Each day you can find a great variety and diversity of news and opinions on the tech and online media worlds.

#7 - How to Change the World - Guy Kawasaki
On his about page, Guy boils down his entire mission statement to two words: empower entrepreneurs. And that’s what each post gives you: tightly focused advice on how to reach the next level, whatever that might be. Again, I must gravitate toward positive and forward-thinking personalities, and Guy is nothing else if this. Inspirational and practical stuff both.

#8 - Publishing 2.0 - Scott Karp
Scott is unmatched in shedding “web 2.0″ and the current state of online media in a philosophical and intellectual light.

#9 - Blog Maverick - Mark Cuban
Self-made millionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is delightfully blunt and compelling on a myriad of subjects, from the massive repercussions of the shift from TV to the Internet, to why men shouldn’t wear ties, to how NBA referees should do a better job, and that’s just for starters!

#10 - Deep Jive Interests - Tony Hung
I discovered Tony through a recent guest blogging stint on ProBlogger, and he’s quickly become one of my favorites. The good doctor goes deep on all aspects of blog-world, from the blogger v. journalism debate, to the use of widgets, to linkbaiting, and onward.

Honorable Mention
There are many, but I’ll hold to just two:

* Micro Persuasion – Steve Rubel
* Mapping the Web - Aidan Henry

Update: None other than Mathew Ingram was kind enough to point out to me that I mistakenly labeled the great Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 as Steve, not Scott. Sorry Scott!