Changing Perceptions 

This will probably be my last substantial post on OSM (the other Open Source Media). Others who are probably more knowledgeable than I have already talked about why ad revenue might not stream in like the founders think. I'll leave you to read their thoughts on that matter. Instead I wanted to talk about the perceptions of bloggers, and how it relates to market share. OSM is trying to turn blogging into a profitable venture... and one of the first things one has to do when entering a market space is to examine that space, and who already plays in it. What is your product, and who are you selling it to? Also, is there room in the market for another business?

OSM is attempting to enter the news and commentary market. This is a large market, with a lot of big players and stiff competition. We're talking about going up against CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, and a whole host of other news and wire services that are too numerous to name. That is the competition, and the essence of the product right there. What I don't think the good folks over at OSM have considered however is the cost of their product to their customer. Not being an insider, I could very well be wrong about this, but for now that's the assumption I'm working off of. Right now they're concentrating on ad revenue, and whether their customer is willing to spend money on products that companies may advertise on their affiliate blogs. However I don't think they've considered the most important cost to the customer... time.

Reading news, and following political commentary takes time. People only have a finite amount of it, and they're only willing to spend a certain percentage of it reading news. In other words, the resources of your customer are fixed. What changes is where they're willing to spend that fixed amount of time. The other concern is that most people who would be interested in your product already get news and commentary from some source. That means that in order to get people to come to your site, you have to convince them to stop going to another, because odds are you're not going to be able to convince them to take more time out of their busy day for more news and analysis. This is where perceptions come into play.

Ann Althouse recently pointed out that the inaugural featured post on OSM was content from Jeff Goldstein (aka Protein Wisdom). Her comments, which were largely brushed off by OSM contributors as sour grapes, showed concern that people unfamiliar with blogging would be turned off by this, or at the very least wouldn't understand it. I don't think the OSM board understand how important her comments actually are. OSM was created for bloggers... but it has also been formatted and marketed to bloggers and blog readers. In other words, they're not trying to take readership from sites like CNN, MSNBC or FoxNews. Whether they realize it or not, they're simply taking readership from already existing blogs. While this may be a good short term solution, in the long run it won't pay off.

Don't get me wrong... I think Protein Wisdom is great. He's very funny, and I personally make sure to check out what he has to say on a daily basis (which is why he's in my blogroll). But the question is, would someone unfamiliar with that style of commentary coming from a mainstream media source understand what they're looking at? Remember... the goal of this venture is not to take market share away from bloggers, but instead is to take it away from the MSM. If you're not taking market share away from the MSM... then what good are you? You're just another blog aggregator, and frankly there are more than enough of those. OSM seems to be making a lot of assumptions about their readers knowledge. In other words, when they point people to someone's blog, they're not telling the reader what to expect. They're expecting them to see the author's name, and simply know what is to come next. While that is fine for a blog aggregator (whose primary purpose is to simply tell you when a known site is updated)... a news service has to do more.

So how do perceptions come into play? Bloggers have a perception problem outside of the blogosphere (and remember that is where OSM needs to get its readers). Bloggers are perceived as "those guys who write whatever the hell they want to in their pajamas". Like most groups who are smeared in this sort of fashion, bloggers took ownership of the name, and made it their own. Instead of fighting the idea of pajama clad pundits, they owned it, and even advertised that fact with pride. I think this was generally a good idea (in that it actually served to deflect criticism), but it has a problem. While taking ownership of the name (like Pajamas Media did) is a good first step, it doesn't do anything to change the perception that caused the name in the first place.

People who read and like MSM news sources aren't going to switch to bloggers for their news if they see them as unprofessional yutzes. The goal of OSM, I thought, was to create a site for citizen journalists, that would bring the best philosophies of blogging to news reporting. This means first hand accounts, accountability, transparency, and immediate corrections. However, standard blogging won't cut it, because there is a lack of professionalism there. It doesn't have a professional voice, which people expect when it comes to news reading. Citizen journalism isn't just blogging, and I hope that OSM realizes that so they will be as successful as possible.

Update: You know... at the very least I thought I could have been oatmeal with raisins... or maybe that stuff with the cinnamon swirled right in there with little apple chunks. Was this post really that bland? Alright... I didn't have breakfast and now I'm really hungry. But I'm definitely not having oatmeal... I hate that stuff. Fruit Loops anyone?