Techdirt Insight Community In The News

from the techdirt dept

Fri, Jun 22nd 2007 11:14am — Mike Masnick

We've had a few nice writeups about the Techdirt Insight Community lately that we wanted to share. Mark Glaser, over at MediaShift, spent some time checking out the Techdirt Insight Community recently and wrote up a nice article about the community and how it's offering an excellent alternative to expensive analyst firms for companies of all sizes, while also helping to generate attention, money and additional business for independent experts. Meanwhile, we had a few Techdirt employees in Boston at the Enterprise 2.0 conference earlier this week, and Michael Sampson wrote up a nice description of the Techdirt Insight Community, calling it "research and analysis 2.0." It's always nice to see people appreciating what we're doing.

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12 Comments

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Steve Jobs, 22 Jun 2007 @ 11:36am

It's the sound......
of one handed clapping
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Jun 2007 @ 11:39am

In all seriousness...
This is by no means directed at the TechDirt community because every tech blog in existence is guilty of it but frankly asking this question at other blogs would result in a flamewar.

What is it with all this ___ 2.0 nonsense when it comes to the tech industry? Is this supposed to be a hip savy way of saying that someone is taking ___ to the next level?

And if that is the case then what about the internet is being taken to the next level in Web 2.0 since you pretty much can't do a day without seeing on some site, blog, or post.

I'm not trying to bait or start an argument I really don't get all this ____ 2.0 stuff.
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Robert, 22 Jun 2007 @ 11:45am

Web 2.0
Not the right place to discuss, but nevertheless:

From the person that coined the term:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
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- Anonymous Coward, 22 Jun 2007 @ 1:51pm
  
  Re: Web 2.0
  Thanks for the explanation. And reason I posted here is because I knoew that I would get an acutal answer instead of dozens of people tripping over each other trying to score a "clever" remark. You know like at Slashdot?
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Chris, 22 Jun 2007 @ 11:53am

Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is Johnny Mnemonic style interfacing. Anything else is just hype.
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Shohat, 22 Jun 2007 @ 1:59pm

I don't understand why
Why would a serious person would want to know an opinion of a person that generates some of his income via a blog ?
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- Anonymous Coward, 22 Jun 2007 @ 2:16pm
  
  Re: I don't understand why
  Why would a serious person would want to know an opinion of a person that generates some of his income via a blog ?
  
  Are you suggesting that anyone who blogs can't be insightful? That's ridiculous. There are tons of experts who blog all the time, and being able to get them together to work on a problem together seems like an excellent way to get value.
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  - Shohat, 22 Jun 2007 @ 4:22pm
    
    Re: Re: I don't understand why
    FEW . Really few experts blog.
    But out of those who blog, NONE are blogging from money. A person that blogs for money, is not the kind of person you want to be listening to when considering business strategies.
    
    The CEO of Godaddy blogs. The CEO of Sun blogs. There are some great scientific blogs run by top Professors. Matt Cutts (phd, google webspam lead) blogs.
    Not a single person smart enough to have an opinion worth listening to will blog for money. For free, sure.
    
    For money, some of these people might consider giving a good analysis. But I just don't see a real top-class professional or just a well educated person blogging for money.
    And I don't mean running a massive blog like techdirt, but like... getting 500$ for posting his analysis about "The influence of YouTube on broadband demand in San-francisco".
    That's not the kind of thing a professional worth listening to would do.
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    - Mike (profile), 22 Jun 2007 @ 5:03pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: I don't understand why
      For money, some of these people might consider giving a good analysis. But I just don't see a real top-class professional or just a well educated person blogging for money.
      
      Shohat, just to be clear, members of the community aren't "blogging for money." Their blogs simply act as their resumes to qualify for the community -- but that's it. They give analysis within the community to companies who need analysis. It's not on their blogs. Their blogs and their analysis in the community are two separate things. And, yes, there are tons of top notch professionals in the community.
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      - CF, 23 Jun 2007 @ 12:23am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: I don't understand why
        Mike- can you please respond to me offlist?
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      - CF, 23 Jun 2007 @ 12:24am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: I don't understand why
        Mike- can you please respond to me offlist?
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Jim Durbin, 22 Jun 2007 @ 5:02pm

Experts Blog
Shohat - I would say that you're just about as wrong as a person can be. I'm one of those people who made money from Techdirt, and it's actually quite insulting to suggest that true experts would never answer these questions. Professional Consultants live on their reputation, and the Insight Community is another place to put your name out and compare it to other experts. One thing most companies lack is the knowledge of what to ask for, and in the Insight Community, you have a population of tech-savvy consultants and social media experts who can help companies understand some of the broader issues behind the Web 2.0. As for well-educated bloggers and money - I can point to thousands of business blogs of highly paid marketing consultants, lawyers, academics, employment specialists, SEO experts, networking specialists, doctors, politicians and every other speciality under the sun who blog....and also want money for it. Blogging improves your online reputation if done right, and Techdirt gives us another forum to compare our answers, with money as a prize. No, we're not getting full value from the money (although my $1100 for two answers) certainly beats my bill rate), but more important, done consistently, good answers will bring you business. Most of this is so new that companies haven't had time to build expertise in-house. They pay handsomely now for research - and this is another tool for them. But don't listen to me. I'm just a poor schmuck who blogs for free. Shoot me an e-mail and we'll spend a day at $125 an hour correcting your misconceptions.
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