BusinessWeek has an update on OhmyNews, the newspaper largely made by citizens and itself very newsworthy a couple of years ago. Beginning 2003 I wrote about for the first time.
Apparently OhmyNews is not yet structurally profitable. Read the article for the details, but this quote from McKinsey's Korean director is very short sighted for someone who is a strategic advisor to large corporations....
"Other industry watchers also express doubts that citizen journalism will turn out to be a going concern. Had it been an attractive global model, "someone would have made lots of money by now," adds Stephen
Bear, Seoul-based director of McKinsey's Korean operation."
Very good point.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenWe might just be at the starting phase of this whole phenomenon of open source journalism. In my view, the scale and amount of visitors will increase and this might boost the profitability of these initiatives in the long run by using AdSense, content syndication, market research services etc.
Besides, why are companies like Digg and Redddit so successful and what does this tell us about OhMyNews ? There is a key difference in terms of centralized or decentralized content production and perhaps quality. On the other hand, the democratic nature of it all might be relevant for OhMyNews.