Publishing 2.0 » Too Much Media

I think that a big feeling felt here on Newsvine is similar to what that guy is discussing, however I don't see it as a problem. This is a beta, and people here are meant to post/seed/comment...the whole sha-bang. One problem I currently see with Newsvine is that I've talked to a few friends, and they almost feel that they are required to seed (at least) simply for the fact that it is pushed quite highly.

Who says you can't create content and consume content all at the same time? Personally for me the ratio of create to consume is about 1 to 50... I would think that would be a similar ration for most?

He says he's too tired to list all the sites ("dozens (maybe hundreds) of collaborative and participatory media") but he isn't too tired to blog on and on about how there is too much media being created and not enough people to consume it.

A man blogs on his blog about there being too many blogs.

Now, where's that grain of salt.

Sorry to interrupt your echo chamber. The great thing about participatory media is authors can defend themselves amidst a pile-on.

Mike, I wonder if you gave my site as close a look before pigeonholing me as a "media curmudgeon" as I did your site before pigeonholing it as "too much." Neither is particularly fair, I guess.

I think for people who are into participatory media, your site is probably one of the best (if not the best). My question is whether the average person will embrace the participatory media revolution and whether they will be comfortable with the wisdom of the collective.

Here's most the Active Comments from your home page right now:

* Bush Confident Warrantless Wiretaps Legal (19 comments) * How to Become a Featured Writer on the Vine (16 comments) * Saddam's No. 2 Says WMD are in Syria (14 comments) * Canada Reasserts Arctic Sovereignty (13 comments) * Lost is Making Me Crazy (12 comments) * Hamas Election Victory Shocks World (11 comments) * Should Blogs Advertise? (10 comments)

And Most Votes:

* Bush Confident Warrantless Wiretaps Legal (36 votes) * Canada Reasserts Arctic Sovereignty (31 votes) * Nintendo announces DS Lite (26 votes) * Newsvine's CEO Mike Davidson Interviewed on Inside the Net (25 votes) * Hamas Election Victory Shocks World (23 votes) * Remembering Challenger 20 Years Later (23 votes) * How to Become a Featured Writer on the Vine (17 votes)

It's a fascinating mix, but what is the average person supposed to make of it?

Try reading a different view on me from one of your featured writers: http://blackfriars.newsvine.com/_news/2006/01/23/67907-the-essence-of-journalism-in-the-era-of-too-much-media

And don't get all crusty Mike, I don't have anything against your site. It's just all the talk of revolution that makes me a bit of curmudgeon -- but alternative media is all about diverse points of view, right? Maybe?

Scott, your article is insightful. There is a huge abundance of media online these days, along with dwindling information in the print world. Rather bringing new demands for our time and attention, I see these social and collaborative sites as being a better and more efficient way of doing an old thing...whether it be a photo album, an Internet bookmark list, a newspaper or a written journal.

One reason I actually like Newsvine is that it helps to filter the onslaught. You get the top AP stories (stuff I like to read in my local paper), but you also get cutting edge tech articles, the odd news clips and the interesting features/commentaries. It's almost like a mix between Digg.com and the New York Times...perfect for me.

The voting system serves as an "info natural selection" by pushing interesting reads to the top of the pile. Yeah, sometimes worthy stories don't get bumped up...so my Watchlist captures those for me.

I don't really see our parents using Newsvine...or MySpace or Digg for that matter. Not that any of these are hard to jump into; it's just a different generation and mindset.

Why would a busy person take time to vote on stories or comment? Others on this site have pointed out that humans have a natural love for socializing. We like to gab about the news and add our own comments to the dialogue. Besides, I feel like the few minutes a day I invest in voting or seeding stories is paid back to me by having a place where the news is a higher quality mix.

Anyway, you brought up some good points. I think we'll see some sifting in the coming years as people discontinue visiting less useful sites and continue to participate in sites that bring value. About five years ago, there were a handful of top search engine sites...most are gone now because Google provided a simple and efficient answer to that need.

I don't really see our parents using Newsvine...or MySpace or Digg for that matter. Not that any of these are hard to jump into; it's just a different generation and mindset.

Well, actually... My dad (about 55) used to use two international and three national newssites. The international newssites have been partly replaced by Newsvine. Although I must admin that the participatory level is 0, it would be too much to expect that it would be higher, though.

Mike,

Thank you for all the thoughtful responses. Now this is getting fun. First, a few concessions to points that you made.

- I did unfairly lump Newsvine into the "News 2.0" hype, and kudos to you for not giving in. I just picked on this hype from others like Paul Montgomery, but that doesn't make it right to propagate it.

- Good point about the Cola tasting -- the test with my mother was gimmicky, but I think the results are still instructive. Anyone like her who decided to check out what's going on with all these new apps just because they've heard about them would still feel overwhelmed by all the options and want to run to something familiar (and in MSN's case, of lesser quality). And they likely won't spend time on any extensive testing. Most people judge based on first impressions -- a structured test might be more instructive but it would also be somewhat artificial compared to how people will actual "check out" new apps. Despite your efforts to keep Newsvine away from the 2.0 hype, it's already been sucked in, so that's just the reality you have to work with.

Have you done any formal market research as part of the Beta, i.e. identify people like my mother who were invited by someone to the Beta and try to separate out their feedback from the early-adopter types who are power-using the site? Might be interesting to run a survey for people who don't feel comfortable giving feedback through participation and who don't have a blog to post their feedback on. (I instinctively suggest this because I do a lot of market research for a living.)

As to your site, it's the community participation that differentiates it from just reading the wire. So here's a few suggestions with an eye towards making it inviting if someone like my mother stops by to check it out:

- If she comes to the page and the first thing she see is the variation of your house that says "Already have your own blog?" she's immediately going to think -- this is not for me. I understand why you're roting those ads, but they do make a first impression.

- Top Wire and Top Seeds on the top right of the Home page: You have to click somewhere else to find an explanation of what these are and how they work. If you're doing something innovative, people shouldn't have to hunt around for an explanation of what it is. You should provide some text with those lists to indicate to a new user what their function is.

- Same problem with the vote icon and the comment icon under the main stories (and to a lesser extent the tag list, which you don't label) -- if my mother is just coming to the site, she won't have any idea what these mean.

If you really want Newsvine to be for "everyday people" you have to make it simple and obvious for them. I think you're right in concept that people do want more value out their media than static news, but they don't want to have to work too hard to get it (or to realize that they're getting more value).

- Small point: Under Top Vine, you should hot link the sources so people can check them out directly.

I don't know if any of those suggestions are helpful, but it's fun to participate in your Beta (and to take time out from being a "curmudgeon" to be constructive).

Incidentally, Mike and I both referred to another one of my posts, News 2.0 Your Mother Can Use, in which I had my mother test a bunch of different "News 2.0" apps, including Newsvine. There's an interesting conversation thread over there for anyone who finds the conversation here interesting.

I have to throw in my two cents and say that I wholeheartedly disagree with Scott Karp about there being too many media options out on the web for the average user. First of all, this is assuming the least common denominator of people and basically saying that people are too stupid to navigate the varied options available to them. This is akin to the T.V. newsmagazine shows where someone comes to the U.S. from a third world country and is taken to a Wal Mart or a Super Grocery Mart, only to lament that there are too many options, too many choices. These are people used to living in cloistered societies where choice is not a fact of life. For people like these, yes too many options can seem formidable and there will always be people such as these. But I also note how quickly people moving to the U.S. from less free and open societies always seem to adapt to their new culture. People are not as stupid as you assume. It is only a matter of what people are used to. Given more choices, people will always flourish.

Secondly, new technologies have always been in the sole domain of nerds and cyber-geeks. Even the Internet and the WWW itself was originally only used by nerds and cyber-geeks. And there have always been the detractors and naysayers along the way. Thank God that there are visionary people out there who refuse to listen to the hullabaloo and forge ahead instead.

Thank God that the early voyagers didn't listen to their detractors when they said that it was not possible to sail around the world or the New World might never have been discovered. Thank God the Wright Brothers didn't listen to their detractors when they were repeatedly warned that for one, flight would never work, never be practical, and more importantly no one would ever want to fly. Thank God the visionary people of NASA and President Kennedy didn't listen to those who said it was impossible to fly to the moon.

And more close to this subject, as told in the book "Hackers" by Stephen Levy, in the early days of the Homebrew Club and the nascent personal home computer revolution, there was a man who sounded eerily like yourself, who argued in print that there was no market for the personal computer because it was only for geeks and nerdy guys with no life and certainly no girlfriends. I don't think I have to tell you that he was definitely wrong.

I'm now reading "The Search" by John Batelle, relating the story of Google and how they "and their rivals rewrote the rules of business and transformed our culture". It is interesting to note that they also had their detractors. There were those saying the same things then as you are now. "No one wants to search for what they want to find," they said. "When confronted with a blank search box, most people wouldn't know what to do with it," they said. "People want to find things through a directory structure like Yahoo's original model," they said. And certainly the major portals such as Yahoo didn't see the value in search. After all, search only served to drive traffic off of their own site. Their goal was to keep as much traffic on their own portals. Once again, I don't have to tell you what a fabulous success Google has been.

There will always be naysayers and detractors, those sitting on the sidelines and for whatever reason constantly deriding and badgering the visionaries. People are much smarter than you assume. As Mike D. said, people always have choice and one of those choices is always to NOT choose. They can always just read the articles. They don't have to contribute. We see this in government. Not everyone serves, and with the paltry poll numbers we see that not everyone participates. Does this mean that democracy is doomed to failure? I don't think I have to answer that question as it is obvious. I truly believe that what newsvine and some other sites have going for them is democracy. This is truly democracy in action. If you feel that democracy is too difficult and time consuming for you to participate, I assure your that there are those of us who feel empowered by this show of "power to the people" and will forge ahead regardless. Damn the naysayers!

Dreamweavr72, it's not about being too "too stupid to navigate the varied options," it's about being so overwhelmed by the options that you don't know where to focus.

Some recommended reading for anyone else having trouble grasping this concept:

The Paradox of Choice Umair Haque on "The Attention Economy" Fred Willon on "The Looming Attention Crisis"

Scott,
I don't think it is even about being overwhelmed with the options available. When you go to your local Super Walmart, or let's be more specific, when you go down the cereal aisle, do you have problems focusing on what to buy and think 'oh goodness there are too many choices here, there is no way that anyone could possibly have enough time or inclination to try out all these different cereals,why don't they just have 2 or 3 different cereals, that would be much easier?" This sounds overly simplistic, maybe, but that is ultimately the gist of your argument, that too many choices leads to information burnout. I don't believe this is the case at all. Once again, for the cereal aisle, all those different cereal products ensures that there will be something that everyone will like. When you go down that aisle more than likely you already know what you want, you don't have to choose every time you are confronted with all the options. Most research confirms that most people stick close to home as far as their preferences and habits are concerned. But people can also try out other cereals at their leisure. I have seen advertisements for cereals that looked good on TV and I tried them out. Some I liked, some I didn't. But I never thought, Gee there is just too many cereals in the world. This is the beauty of a capitalistic world. Plenty of choices to ensure that everyone will find something that they like. I think that my analogy fits well with what we are talking about here, namely the abundance of media options available to the average internet user. Of course, no one has to try out every single website and most stick to what they know and like. But when people hear about a new service such as newsvine, a lot of people are apt to try it out for themselves. I, for one, have tried the delicious fruity taste of the newsvine cereal and find it highly appetizing and will be coming back for more. As Tony the Tiger says, "They're Greeeat!"