SimonWaldman.net

I can, and probably will write an essay on this another time, but it’s Rich’s little outburst is well worth a read

The problem is that the hopes that Dan Gillmor raised for the media industry in his book — which kicked off this whole business — have largely failed….like nearly every News 2.0 venture so far, Dan’s Bayosphere was a failure.

He has a lot of company. The dog’s breakfast of new media startups includes Gather, Backfence, Newstrust, Daylife, Bayosphere, TailRank, Associated Content, Pegasus News, Tinfinger, Findory, Inform, Newsvine, Memeorandum, NowPublic. The highest distinction on this list is to be one of the few still spoken of in the present tense (or present perfect — “They haven’t yet succeeded…”)

Well, possibly a bit down on Daylife (only just out of the blocks) and NowPublic after this news but who can argue with

Yes, there is a media revolution in the works. But it’s messy, it’s nasty videos on Youtube, not the neat & tidy civic Welcome Wagon of citizen journalism. You can’t quit your job as a journalist and replace your salary with adsense on your blog.

See, the future is always going to be more Bladerunner than The Jetsons - something I’ll return to later. [Thanks, Martin for the link]