Fodder Thoughts: Going Beyond Blogging
For the last six weeks I've been teaching a graduate course at Emerson College. The course focuses on "Interactive Journalism" (something I geek out about, which means I'm one of perhaps 10 people on the planet who find "Interactive Journalism" invigorating).One of the main themes of the class is the difference between top-down journalism and bottom-up journalism. Top-down journalism is the dominant form used by print and broadcast outlets. Under this model, editors and reporters find, cultivate and disseminate the news with little to no audience involvement. On the other side, bottom-up journalism flips the entire model on its head (hence, bottom-up). In this system, the audience becomes an integral part of the process by commenting and, in some cases, finding and reporting news.
When it comes to Web content, I like the idea of bottom-up journalism because the Web offers direct conduits to the audience. Audience involvement is a key differentiator for the Web, and I believe it should be cultivated.
My business -- The Fodder Network -- is built on the bottom-up model. I see each of the blogs in the Network as the beginning of a conversation (or in the case of some blogs, many, many conversations). As such, audience interaction and participation is vital to the overall success of the business.
But lately, I've been mulling the incorporation of top-down content products. These products could be feature stories, or slideshows, perhaps even podcasts and videos. I'm not entirely sure how (or if) these things would come together, nor do I know how much production time they would require. Nonetheless, I'm starting to think the Fodder Network needs to develop a multi-tiered content strategy. The strategy would look something like this:
- Level 1: Baseline -- The baseline is set and maintained by the bottom-up "conversation" approach currently used by the Network's sites. This level will always be the bread and butter of the Network.
- Level 2: Top-down feature stories -- Much remains to be hashed out on this level, but I'm considering the aforementioned slideshows, podcasts and videos. I might try to mesh bottom-up commenting features with the top-down material, but the overall content would be derivative of traditional journalism's one-way content approach (i.e. the content comes from the Network and the audience reads/watches it with little interaction).
I've fallen prey to this before. I have tons of ideas and I can often convince myself and others that these ideas are worth pursuing. But as I've learned more about business -- and as I've experienced more -- I've discovered that sometimes it's actually bad to have too many ideas. It's sometimes bad to venture beyond your core competencies. Often, it's best to approach a new idea from a negative standpoint and then see if the idea keeps nagging you. If it comes up again and again, you've got something.
So, I ask again, am I trying to do too much? Should I let this idea linger, or does it just not matter? -- Mac
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