Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a resource for the multitude of interesting things undereported or lacking a hub. Blogs and wikis are the starting point, hope somebody makes the next generation of communication/sharing platform the current one is getting stale.
But! A web resource devoted to boosting Internet connectivity in Manhattan, now that would attract some serious money. I met with Jeff Jarvis on this trip and he asked me to think about ways for news orgs to make money. This is how you do it. Understand your community and the needs of its economy, where money is flowing, and where it’s being held back due to a lack of information, and pour resources into that area. You will find a way to draw money from the activity you’re covering.
Now, back to John Robinson’s query. Why should news orgs host blogs for members of their community? Because the business of news organizations is information. Gather it up, sort it, organize it, keep it current and do it again. People have a huge thirst for new information, more these days than ever and increasing all the time. It's ridiculous that information-gathering orgs should be shrinking in a time where what they do is in such high demand. We’re constantly checking our Droids and Nexus One’s for new stuff to interest our short attention span.
Let the people in so you can find the wells that need digging. We can poke around the surface, but we have lives and jobs — other missions. Watch where we go, and help us achieve. The rewards will be our trust and the money of businesses that want to learn from and educate through that flow. Same way Twitter, Facebook and Google are expanding now, that should be happening in the news business.
via Why newspapers should host blogs. (Scripting News).