Another citizen's media conference

Our own Kevin McCrea attended J-Lab's Citizens Media Summit last week. His takeaways from the confab:

Random bits of info I picked up last week at the media conference:

• Very easy to get people to contribute photos.  Flickr interface particularly good.  People are generally more comfortable sharing photos than writing
   
• As we've learned before, some contributors like to be edited before their pieces are posted
   
• Few like to be called "citizen journalist"
   
• Partnerships (with other publications, etc.) are beneficial but eat up more time than anticipated
   
• VoicesOfSanDiego.com, which is a non-profit, uses a PBS-style "membership program"
   
• desire for more "technically savvy" journalists, particularly those who could integrate photo and video
   
• YourHub.com: licensing (or, in their word, "syndicating") its platform throughout the country, with papers in CA and FL going live by the end of the year . . . having . a "this week's topic" to lure contributions of a particular theme has never worked for them . . . has 42 websites and 15 print editions . . . used frisbees and dog chains in its promotional efforts . . . 26 employees . . . "people love the print edition" but it confuses people into not knowing about the website . . has a full-time customer service rep who would-be contributors can  call so that they can be walked through the steps of what needs to be done to contribute . . uses Unisys as a publishing system . . . "will be profitable by December" . . 7000 registered users . . . discovered that promoting the ability to contribute stories actually discouraged readers who simply wanted to read without contributing . . . took a while to realize that it is not a newspaper, and has already changed the website to get away from a newspaper look and feel
     
• community reachout requires continual marketing even beyond the launch
   
• check out BBC Video Nation for idea of how citizen video contributions can work well
   
• even if a contributor is looking to publicize themselves through their pieces, that is still OK since that leads to promotion of the site itself (from Bakotopia band site)
   
• at Bluffton Today, everyone who is photographed randomly for the site gets a business card that says "you've been spotted . . . check yourself out at blufftontoday.com" -- great idea!!!
   
• Adrian: encourage citizens to contribute technology, not just text/photos, to take better advantage of our content . . . BBC has language that encourages its users to create things with its tools
   
• one paper discovered much less profanity in comments without a filter because that ended the gamesmanship and uses an eBay "trusted seller" model for contributors
   
• Mary Lou: make contributors the stars . . . "If it's local & legal, we publish it.  All of it." . . . continually suggest easy ways for people to contribute -- photo contests work particularly well . . . print big for marketing and revenue . . . three out of four staffers not from the newspaper business, and staffers have to be open to a new kind of journalism . . people like to be edited.