NBC Once Again Overvaluing Content, Undervaluing Community
from the their-own-loss dept
NBC Universal, like so many big media companies, seems to view everything through a top-down broadcast media lens. For example, while it may seem like a good idea that the company is finally (finally!) recognizing that people may be craving local content that is sometimes difficult to find, there's something missing in its announcement of plans to create "locals only" websites targeted at specific geographic regions. You can read the entire press release and see if you notice what's missing.Every single part of the description of the site is about delivering content to people. Nowhere is there any sense of actually building a community around that content. The only time "community" is mentioned is as a "target." The press release claims that these sites are aimed at "social capitalists" who are the leading influencers in their communities, but the company seems to have missed out on the fact that the reason those folks are influencers isn't because they sit back and just consume the content shoveled to them, but because they take part in the process. They share the news, they comment on it, they write it, they annotate it, they build on it and they help create it. But all that NBC Universal is talking about is taking the same old, old model of simply shoveling content to people.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: community, content, influencers, local, news, social capitalists
Companies: nbc universal
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
They're all criminals anyway
I do wonder how NBC would handle someone posting copyrighted material that NBC owns the copyright to. Would they call it infringement or not? If it is infringement, who exactly is the infringer?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Close
So adding blogs as a way to obtain and gauge public reaction, and potential crowd sourcing for stories from the long tail may provide a more "local" feel to the 24-hour news cycle. This helps in local engagement, and possibly has a positive correlation to local programming (including news) ratings. My experience when scanning Gannet outlets, is that the contributions from the "Man on the Street" blogs are somewhat deconstructive in nature-- shouting matches where very little constructive content can be derived.
I want to continue this discussion, and even drew up a laundry list of 10-15 things to consider, but it needs to be vetted. I also just realized I am already running late to my next appointment. Just a thought, but maybe John Wallace would like to sponsor Floor64 to do a case on this.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Close
Buzzword count exceeded, closing...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Close
I actually worked on similar projects. Thanks for playing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Jumping to conclusions
"the new sites will feature content from a wide variety of sources -- including print, online publications, bloggers, individuals and NBC's local television stations"
"They... have an interest in creating, experimenting, sharing and critiquing all they experience. "
"Content will be aggregated from the best available sources – in many cases linking to outside content providers or contributed by the audience itself"
I'm not saying this effort will work, but it looks to me like they're clearly aiming to involve the audience more deeply than just reading, they're just not using the words you would use to describe it. Maybe it will end up being too much push content and not enough community, time will tell, but I think you're giving it short shrift.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Is "Community Building" Their Business Model?
They may not be using the Web in ways of which you approve, but "creating community" isn't what they do or apparently what they want to do.
What's wrong with providing content, news, and information on the local level that people might want?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]