It’s hard to tell from Dan Gillmor’s open letter to the Bayosphere community, but it appears the highest profile citizen journalism experiment in the US may be folding. Gillmor lists the various plausible business models for the endeavor—ranging from consulting and trade publishing to advertising networks and tagging systems—noting that in the end he and his partner opted for publishing a single “citizen media-driven” website. One gets the sense that Gillmor just didn’t much like the role of entrepreneur, but I suspect there’s more to the story.
The only part of the Bayosphere website I perused was Gillmor’s weblog, and therein may lie the fatal flaw of the Bayosphere model: the website was perhaps too closely tied to Gillmor’s personality. This is something that other citizen journalism efforts—including Twin Cities Daily Planet—need to be cognizant of and work hard to avoid. (Disclosure: I’m the Twin Cities Daily Planet’s Saint Paul editor.)
At any rate, Gillmor takes the time to bullet-point ten exceptionally important lessons learned that are required reading for anyone working in journalism, professional or amateur. These lessons alone provide ample evidence of Bayosphere’s success in particular and the promise of citizen journalism in general.
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