Jeff Jarvis – visionary, pundit, blogger – has a new book that just officially hit bookstores today, and already it’s in its second printing. We think that “What Would Google Do?” will be as successful and provocative as just about anything in the Malcolm Gladwell oeuvre. It’s not so much a book about the inside workings of Google but about the business philosophy that propels it. This is not what they used to teach at Master of the Universe school. It counsels sharing, cooperation and openness.
Here are some of the tenets of Business 2.0:
Customers are now in charge. They can be heard around the globe and have an impact on huge institutions in an instant. People can find each other anywhere and coalesce around you – or against you. The mass market is dead, replaced by a mass of niches.
Why should Baristanet readers care? Well, for starters, Jeff Jarvis is Baristanet’s fairy godfather. It was meeting with Jarvis in early 2004 that led to creation of this blog. See WWGD, p. 127. Jarvis envisioned what we eventually proved: that blogging local news would be much more dynamic than a traditional weekly newspaper. Why? Because it involves the readers. Here’s a review of WWGD from Montclair’s Stephen Baker, Business Week writer and author of “The Numerati.” Now in stock at Watchung Booksellers. (Collins Business, $26.99)
Meanwhile another big book has just blipped onto our radar screen. “Lark and Termite,” a literary novel released earlier this month, just scored a nice-sized advertisement in a recent issue of “The New Yorker.” The lavishly-praised novel is about two siblings, one severely handicapped, who are left in the care of their aunt in 1959 West Virginia. I didn’t realize until I attended the Glen Ridge Gala Saturday night that the author, Jayne Anne Philips, also lives in Glen Ridge. (Her book was lumped together with mine and a bunch of others in a silent auction basket of books by GR writers.) She’ll be reading and signing “Lark and Termite” this Thursday night at the Glen Ridge Women’s Club, with books available from Watchung Booksellers. Philips directs the MFA Creative Writing program at Rutgers-Newark, but is on sabbatical this semester. (Random House, $24).
It will be interesting to see how “dynamic” blogs like Baristanet seem when they no longer have bona fide journalistic enterprises like the Star Ledger, the New York Times Jersey section and the Montclair Times from which to suck their life’s blood.
Well, I suppose there’ll always be a mirror on the wall.
Without “bona fide” journalistic enterprises to pay some hefty salaries and provide health benefits the writers in the area won’t be able to afford to live here.
Oh such bitterness, Walleroo, why?
Jarvis would say: Do what you do best, link to rest.
And by the way, today the Ledger picked up a story that we had first. And WCBS just picked it up from the Ledger. Writing about stories broken by other news media is a time-honored tradition. But we at least link to original sources.
“Jarvis envisioned what we eventually proved: that blogging local news would be much more dynamic than a traditional weekly newspaper. Why? Because it involves the readers.”
Definitely. Newspapers are suffering because their articles don’t have inane comments tacked on the end. If only The Montclair Times or Star-Ledger would contact lasermike or cathar for comments, they would be more dynamic than Baristanet.
It’s not that you pass off the reporting of others as your own, Debbie. It’s that you don’t do any of your own reporting. (Oh, all right, once in a while you do a little bit.) Right now the “new model” or citizen journalism or whatever you call it is a parasite on the old dead-tree model, is all I’m saying.
What I’m not saying is you suck. Listen to me: You are not evil. You are good.
One of those good parasites then?
Just as good as a blood sucking parasite can possibly be.
I used to like your fairy godfather. But as “time” (meaning no more than 3 years or so) went on, it’s become very obvious that Jarvis is much too much stuffed full of himself, looks in the mirror and always sees a guru worth attending. And really, that he offers up on his resume the founding and guidance of “Entertainment Weekly,” well, if that’s all you’ve got…. He is perfect for an era of short attention spans and semi-literacy, but his opinions and minor accomplishments are definitely not for the ages.
Then, too, I also remember a time when the Baristas positioned themselves as plyers of “community journalism.” And were just that, to a pretty fair extent. But laziness has clearly crept in, and it always seems there is unholy closeness between advertisers and coverage. There’s also way too much cronyism, tub-thumping mention of the Baristas’ many pals. Surely, for example, there’s been way too much mention of Steve Adubato? (One citation a year will suffice quite nicely, thank you.) Of Joel the “compassionate” blogger about wounded dogs who recently spat back here at his critics? Of Amazing Hot Dogs before it went under? Of, dare I add? Parents Who Rock? Even of Bobbi Brown and her landlord spouse without any apparent effort to ever actually talk personally to both of them? (I can only wonder what will happen when that Aussie-themed mini-park for kiddies finally opens.)
Even as this occurs, however, there’s correspondingly much less attention to editorial clarity and proofreading. It certainly does recall to me those wonderful, ungrammatical days when Deirdre Day McLeond had the weekend editorial shift.
As opposed to those when the Baristas, say, fearlessly bearded Dick Grabowsky or Ed Remsen.
Lastly, the references to “other” local writers were just a bit purposely faux naif. Not least because I’m sure the Baristas know that even an ad in The New Yorker is no guarantee of literary value, and in today’s economy might even prove a kiss of death. I think Jayne Ann Philips (or someone like her) once wrote a book which was partly about Nam. To the best of my memory it got great reviews from people who were never in Nam, you know?
Bravo, cathar. Of course, you may want to hide now that the Parents Who Rock fans will be after you for daring to speak ill of the mountains of coverage it gets from the local media.
Unbelieveable how those that waste a good portion of their lives on this site bitching and moaning about trivial issues are the ones that are disparaging the people that provide this venue for your bitching. Although I agree this site should be called cutandpaste.com, it is what it is. Get off your asses and go buy the papers they pilfer off if you feel this way.
Most of what passes off as news today is really press releases from unctuous publicists who seek commercial gain. There’s rarely any follow-up to stories and we have lost the Fourth Estate.
There’s really no good investigative reporting anymore and I agree about the lack of follow ups. WAY too much entertainment news on TV. Sports and celebrities should NOT be top of the hour news stories. I hate when I see a newspaper that puts sports news on the cover. Unless it’s the World Cup, World Series or Superbowl, it belongs in the Sports section.
Listen to me: You are not evil. You are good.
But I wanna be evil (like Eartha Kitt). Meanwhile, just a minor correction to cathar. Amazing Hot Dog never advertised on Baristanet. Maybe you’re thinking Papaya King?
There’s no separation anymre between the regular press and the tabloid press.
Okay, Liz, I was wrong about Amazing Hot Dog. But am I also off-base in guessing that Amazing Hot Dog was hotly pursued as a potential advertiser? I often do get the impression that editorial coverage is dispensed as much to advertisers the Baristas would like to woo as to those already safely in the fold.
And does that mean that you agree with all, most or many of my other comments above, come to think of it?
(Come clean here, too, Liz, since I respect you, what do you really make of the appropriateness of “ThaiLoveLinks.com?”)
I feel a need to step up to Baristanet’s defense. This is a blog, not a newspaper. The beauty of blogs is the ability to cull news from various sources as well as picking up local tidbits that other sources don’t have, and putting them all in one place to keep people with an interest in the particular subject (or in this case, location) informed. It also adds its own spin on some of the news, plus yes, allows people who share an interest in the subject or area to comment and discuss the issues and news tidbits of the day. It’s a community. (Or perhaps a dysfunctional family, in this case!
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I think we’ll always need the newspapers (or their electronic equivalents) to provide the basic news sources – but blogs may increasingly be where we gather to obtain the information. It’s not parasitic, it’s symbiotic. There is a difference.
With all due respect, Nellie, yes there is. Still. Even comparing the NY Post at its most visceral to the Weekly World News during its heyday, there remains a clear and tangible difference.
I’d agree, however, that the margins of taste and coverage between the tabs and the other papers keep narrowing.
But hey, in turn imagine how much more fun the Star-Ledger would be, how better read, if it actually published the stuff it knows about Jersey politics but keeps from us for claimed reasons of taste and discretion!
I agree with Mauigirl…I access Baristanet for different reasons than I read the Star-Ledger. The Star-Ledger presents the fact, I enjoy B’net for the dissemination and intrepretation of those facts. This may sound Pollyanna-ish but I often come away from here learning something–even if that something is a better understanding of an opposing point of view.
I also come here to see what the latest spin is on laserfedoodlemuddlebuffet’s name is.
“But hey, in turn imagine how much more fun the Star-Ledger would be, how better read, if it actually published the stuff it knows about Jersey politics but keeps from us for claimed reasons of taste and discretion!”
It would have to be printed in numerous volumes!
Oh, I think that the Star-Ledger, when presented with the choice (as offered up in John Ford movies) between legend and fact, quite frequently prefers to print the legend, Nellie.
As evidence by, among so many issues, its coverage of Corzine, Springsteen, Menendez, its own labor and financial problems and even, before he outed himself, James McGreevey.
I know, cathar, but it’s still that familiar paper that I bring in from the front lawn to read while I’m having my coffee in the morning.
This is a form of interactive entertainment, often with a nugget of a news item as it’s starting point.
cathar, once again, you should note that the Google ad links are not under the control of Baristanet. Take your beef with ThaiLoveLinks.com to Google. The Google ads are specific to keywords on any given page. If a Baristanet story has a keyword like Thai, the Google ads will relate to that.
It was not a “beef,” spots, but a question to Liz. I’m curious as to her take.
But not about your own. Still, if you’re squirming so, must be time for midday walkies, eh?
No squirming on my part, Monsieur Lunkhead. Only that you posed the same question twice as if you fancied yourself an investigative reporter. Someone else had already pointed out the same info yesterday as I did.
“…Customers are now in charge. They can be heard around the globe and have an impact on huge institutions in an instant.”
Clearly, Mr. Jarvis has never tried to contact customer service at Verizon or PSE&G. What is propping up the big bubble behind Web 2.0 is that it only works if you believe it. The bubble will burst just after the Federal Government passes a law taxing Internet purchases, and people will have to go back to getting their news the old-fashoned way: via rumor, subversion, and sedition.
Jerseygurl…you’re spot on that this blog is interactive entertainment. Agree or disagree, we do have fun getting the dander up, eh!
Don’t get me wrong, folks. I love Baristanet. I wouldn’t spend half my working hours here if I didn’t. But think about it. Without free information, gathered at someone else’s expense, there would be nothing but us and Debbie in her pajamas and that’s about it. I never said a blood sucking parasite couldn’t be pleasant.