SimonWaldman.net

Thanks to Martin for pointing to this piece about OhMyNews in the SF Chronicle. Sounds like they’ve got their work cut out trying to make sure that one of the poster boys for the UGC/ Cit-j movement doesn’t become one of its casualties.

After having turned a small profit for three years, OhmyNews slid into the red in 2006. It faces growing competition in South Korea, has failed to catch fire beyond its borders and, most important, has lost its luster as the must-read, latest new thing.

In an effort to get back on track, the privately owned company is planning an ambitious relaunch in late May — dubbed OhmyNews 2.0 — that seeks to double the number of citizen journalists in South Korea, to 100,000 over the next three years.

I visited there office as part of a group from WEF a few years ago. It was quite hard to square this rather shabby, downtown office with the idea of a revolution in media. But, revolution it was. And Mr Oh was more than impressive.

The OhMyNews model simply hasn’t been replicated anywhere else. In fact, no one else - as far as I know - has even tried this mix of a decent sized editorial team (65) and a mass of ‘citizen reporters’ (although the number of active is much lower than the headline figure they publish).

They tried it in Japan, but had to wind up the citizen element according to Wikipedia (apparently that’s what this tells us). OhMyInternational doesn’t seem to have set the world on fire. Ditto Wikinews (different, I know - but relevant). I think we all know the travails of Backfence, Bayosphere at a local level. This gives an outline of some fledgling efforts in Indonesia.

I know that NowPublic is now flying this flag - much more convincingly than most. And, should you ever meet him, founder Leonard Brody will put a compelling case for their success. Actually, I quite like for an occassional graze around interesting snippets. But for all it’s scale (78,000 members; 4,000 cities) it doesn’t seem to be capturing the imagination. I fear the contributors get more out of it than the readers.

In truth, I think a lot of their original success was a result of the broader media and political climate in South Korea - and they were seen as part of a wave of change [I declare a distinct lack of expertise here, but this gives a sense of the overall media climate]. Like all the best media (often more true with magazine launches), they captured a mood at a particular moment, and made it their own..it just so happened that the best way to capture it - by a million miles - was the net.

I think that’s the missing bit of magic that is blocking some of OhMy’s expansion plans, and so many other services trying to emulate them - the technology might be there, but too often the mood isn’t.