Online Media Cultist

I normally read Mashable, the uber-comprehensible news service of the social media world, through an RSS reader, so I was a little bit surprised when I browsed around the site last night.

Is it just me, or does it have a lot of ads?

The center column is ad-free for the most part, thankfully. But there’s a lot of color and blinking lights and ads that run on and on down both the right and left column of the page.

Far be it from me to criticize a website for trying to make money, I’m all for it! But there’s a balance between content and advertising that’s part art and part science.

I don’t think that Mashable’s use of ads is terrible, but it was enough to be distracting. Which I suppose is good from the advertiser’s perspective!

Taking a look at TechCrunch, arguably the site which Mashable most hopes to emulate in terms of popular and financial success, it’s pretty clear that there are a lot fewer ads and the layout and balance between content and ads is cleaner. There’s a wide body of content on left, with a sizeable column on the right set aside for ads and other stuff.

The appearance of the ads is less distracting on TechCrunch as well. Less bright flashy things going on, lack of Google text ads.

Hey, we all have to use Google text ads from time to time (ahem), but lets face it, they’re not the greatest thing that you can do for the overall appearance of your site.

A piece on Mapping the Web called Why I Stopped Reading TechCrunch and Mashable led me to consider my own take on the top tier, high volume blog publishers and how I’m moderating my own information-intake of late.

To put it more bluntly, I know I’m not alone in being terrified of my RSS reader at times. Oh man, I have 1,400 unread stories? Not an uncommon thought. TechCrunch and Mashable are great places to catch up on the newest product releases, start-up doings, and other inside the social media and tech beltway kinds of stories, but keeping up with them can be a nearly full-time endeavor.

I’ve been using my RSS reader more selectively of late, as a place to browse around when I have the time rather than looking at it as a mountain must be climbed everyday. My day-to-day strategy is to use Techmeme and Twitter as the places where I can quickly get caught up on what’s going on in the tech and webby world while still allowing my community to provide me with the latest news, insider gossip and tips, and all the other juicy stuff that gets an online media cultist up in the morning.

There used to be a saying that if you simply read all of the stories published to The New York Times front page everyday, you’d have a pretty solid understanding of what was going on in the world. I think that you could do worse than scanning all of the headlines on Techmeme a few times a day for understanding what’s going on in tech and online media.

Having that basic understanding, Twitter can then be a place to get the really good stuff, quickly and easily. The key is to set up your Twitter profile to follow those people who are going to deliver the good stuff, which can take some time but I have found to be rather fun.

In fact, my thinking in recent days has become somewhat radical. When I find a new blog that I really like – such as yesterday when Louis Gray wrote about Five More Blogs You Should Be Reading, But Aren’t (I was kindly included on this list, thank you Louis!) – I considered if it would be more beneficial to me to follow the Twitter profiles of the bloggers Louis wrote about rather than add their RSS feeds.

Has Twitter become the new RSS reader?

Mashable and news tracker site Megite have partnered to launch Mashtracker, a “memetracker” that focuses on blog conversations stemming from stories published by Mashable.

This is an interesting development on a few fronts. Gabe Rivera’s suite of memetracker sites – anchored by politics-centric Memeorandum and tech-centric Techmeme – does an excellent job of selecting hot stories (based on an algorithm that uses factors such as links and “influence”) and then surrounds them with related stories and blog articles in story clusters. These clusters change and evolve and move up and down the page fluidly, so it’s easy to see which stories are hot and being talked and buzzed about across the Internet.

Included stories cover a wide range of subject areas and are selected from both mainstream media publications as well as the blogosphere. The new Mashtracker narrows the focus by just tracking social news stories published by Mashable, and the related conversations that spring up around them within the blogosphere. Mashable has a unique opportunity here to be successful, I’ll wager, because it already is a trusted source for social news. (No one does a better job of keeping up with the current blizzard of social networking start-ups, for example.)

And the particular focus on blogs is another step forward in terms of the blogosphere’s credibility. In essence, this is another way in which the blogosphere is declaring that it is in many ways a better source of Internet news, reviews, and opinions than traditional media.

While Mashable’s layout is similar to Techmeme’s, the design is a bit more clunky. That said, I do like that company logos are used to anchor the lead stories. I imagine they’ll clean things up and streamline as the new site matures.

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!

Mashable, a blog that tags itself with the line “social networking 2.0,” has emerged as a leading source for news and analysis of the hyperactively growing nebula of web products and services that fall loosely under the handle of “social media” or “web 2.0″ (think everything from social networks to widgets to new fangled web communities to analysis of web start-ups and everything in between).

Mashable is now issuing an intriguing offer to its readers, which it calls Mash 10: write a well written story that reviews start-up companies in a given space (Mashable honcho Pete Cashmore uses the examples of “19 Ways to Make Social Sites Pay” and “MySpace Layouts Top 10″) and get paid around $.07 per word for doing so.

When done right, this kind of story has the chance to become very popular. Blog readers love Top Whatever lists, and followers of online media deeply appreciate sources that can break down the explosive growth of the industry and help to define and parse what is going on in various sub-spaces. For example, there are hundreds and perhaps even thousands of start-ups hoping to achieve some glimmer of MySpace’s popularity. Who is going after the Austrailian market, though? Are college football fans being tended to? What about Star Trek convention peoples?

These are all areas that are potentially worthy of exploration (along with several trillion others) and it’s intriguing that Mashable is seeking research and writing from its own readers for help in doing this. The money part is also a rather fascinating experiment. Let’s say that Mashable pays a reader $70 for a 1,000 word piece. Will the site make that money back and more in advertising revenue generated around the popularity of one story? It’s certainly possible. More likely though is that if 100 stories are bought and paid for, three or five or ten of them may help to bring the site increased long term readership and help to bring it closer to the TechCrunch range in terms of popularity.

The most challenging part about this experiment, I imagine, will be fielding responses from writers, discarding the junk, helping the good stuff to shine, managing the relationship with writers, and handling the money exchange. In other words, organizing and running any kind of editorial operation – particularly where money is involved – is labor intensive.

I hope that Mashable reports back on how Mash 10 plays out. If it manages to harness the skills, intelligence, and research powers of its own readership, look for other ambitious and growing sites to try something similar.