So much for stealth
I thought that the Rubel post was a quantum leap in awareness of our little venture. Then, Jay Rosen cited us as a possible answer to Mark Glaser's yearning's for a new-model news outlet to work for now.
Wow. In addition to over-satisfying my publicity-whore yen, these posts have sparked a lot of discussion out there of Journalism 2.0 concepts, and of their commercial viability.
That's really cool.
We'll address Glaser's article and the after-discussion in a separate post. In the meantime, I want to answer some of the questions and feedback we've gotten, and to clear up a few misconceptions. None of these are direct quotes, but composites of some of the common questions/issues:
1. Why are you anonymous? How can we give this any creedence if we don't know who you are?
I'm not crazy about the anonymity myself -- In fact, it flies right in
the face of the open-source journalism we hope to practice. But, it's a
necessity at this point, as several members of our group (including me)
have day jobs, which we continue to do and do well while we work on
this nights, weekends and on vacation time. It's been my
experience that few employers are enlightened about this sort of thing.
(A shame, because I know that my employer, for instance, has directly
benefitted by the implementation of things I've picked up while working
on Peg.) So, unless and until we have completed all the prerequisites
to make the launch a reality, the anonymity sticks.
As far as whether you should give us any creedence-- that's up to you. You can read our stuff and make your own judgments.
And any amateur sleuths out there who dig around to try to figure
out our identities will find the answer to be sorely anticlimactic.
We're a collection of media and business-folk whom most people have
never heard of before. (One exception is the already-out-of-the-closet Rathergate blogger Jeff Harrell, who designs/hosts our site.) I'm not Mark Cuban; not a past or present Belo employee; not an old Times-Herald guy; not Eric Celeste; and not a twelve year-old kid pulling a hoax. (All have been suggested.)
2. So if you're anonymous, why do you have a blog?
This is something some of my partners have been razzing me about from the start. My answer:
From the right rail of this site: This blog is a diary of the evolution of our concepts; a buzz-builder;
a beacon for like-minded media folk; and a way for me to communicate
with our growing team.
Of the dozen or so people currently on our virtual team, half found us via this blog. Discussion and pushback from readers-- even just the reading enforced by daily blogging -- have greatly improved our plan since this game began. Through it we've gotten hooked up with some of our closest and best advisors. Just today, contacts we made through this blog look to have helped us shave more than $1.5 million out of the launch expense budget.
By the way, the "stealth" phraseology came from Steve Rubel, not us. The only way in which we're stealth is our anonymity. We've been whoring ourselves out for press in Dallas for several months.
3. I really like your idea of rebating subscribers for commenting and contributing to the site.
This actually came from a post by Steve Outing
at Poynter. Unfortunately, this wasn't actually part of our plan, but
came out of an understandable misunderstanding of the hazy descriptions
of our subscription/advertising model. That said, it's a great idea,
and has been added to the plan. Another good reason we're blogging our
birth -- the online media community is contributing in a real way to
what will increasingly become an open-source launch.
4. That thing you said back several months ago sounds stupid in light of later events and/or contradicts what you're saying now.
That's evolution of concept. That's open-source. That's blogging a launch. Before you fisk us mercilessly for something we wrote in September, you might want to see if we've straightened ourselves out since then.
5. Are you hiring?
Sure, we're "hiring." As long as you're willing to work for "pay" instead of pay.
Kidding aside, the earliest we plan to hire additional staff is later this winter. Watch this space for announcements/ads down the road.
However, if you're engaged with the idea, have something to offer and want to start working for free like the rest of us, let us know. We can use all the good minds we can get.
6. When are you coming to Chicago/Houston/New York/Osh Kosh/My town?
Probably not until we prove that we can make money in the launch market. We won't be announcing rollout cities for quite some time.
Until we as a collective embrace the truth of our existence on Earth as purposeful in sustaining a quality of life that supports the Human species we remain in the shadows of truth.
Posted by: Leela Alvarez | March 19, 2005 at 02:10 AM
Um, OK.
Posted by: Peg | March 19, 2005 at 11:05 AM