Open Source Media group met with harsh criticism
OSM, the Open Source Media group formerly known as Pajamas Media, launched Wednesday, but it hasn't received the positive response one might have expected from the blogosphere. The group, which just secured $3.5 million in venture funds, brings together more than 70 bloggers under one umbrella and hopes to make citizen journalists more visible to people who consume mainstream media.
But for all the work OSM is putting toward supporting the blogging movement, the group hasn't exactly won over the hearts of the blogging community. Of course, anytime a "best of" list of bloggers gets put together, there are bound to be complaints about who got in and who was left out. OSM's list of invitees is no exception. And OSM has some added trouble related to its new name. The group is now involved in a trademark dispute over the name "Open Source Media," which is already owned by a non-profit production company. In short, most of the complaints surrounding OSM's launch come down to a question of how much respect the group actually has for independent Web publishers and what they stand for.
Blog community response:
"I wish them all luck, but I have severe doubts it's going to go anywhere. It would have been one thing if it were pretty much just another group blog angle - no harm, no foul - but in this case, they got together some very high-profile blogs, changed their revenue structures, got around $3.5 million in investments and then spent it on a lackluster site with a boring, forgettable, apparently copyright-infringing name."
--Urthshu
"what I've seen of the business plan looks quite promising to me. Will it be another '90s style dot-com fizzle? Perhaps. Most new ventures do fail. Then again, Amazon and eBay didn't. Will this be the same level? Enh. I doubt it, but I think it's got the potential to give existing news and opinion portals a run for their money."
--Dean's World
"The whole POINT of blogging is decentralization and NOT having editors rape your prose before you publish it, right? Bloggers whose asses doesn??t hold up to fact-checking lose their audiences."
--Aaron's CC:
Jennifer Guevin is assistant managing editor of CNET News. She focuses on science and green tech. But she also makes the occasional contribution to CNET's kitchen gadgets blog or writes about the latest Web distraction. Once a week, she takes the mic as host of CNET's Daily News Podcast. E-mail Jennifer.
