John Geraci Talks To PSFK About outside.in And The Changing Media

Sure, we hear you about the idea that big media is not going to go away – and there are publishers like the NY Times and Guardian leveraging blogs well – but there are many other news outlets, especially TV and niche financial or political newspapers, that are way behind. Do you really think that mainstream media is agile enough to take advantage of the opportunities that platforms like outside.in offer?

Some are and some aren’t. The ones that are stand a chance of becoming the future hubs of news content, the ones that aren’t will be consigned increasingly to the periphery. We’re definitely in a period where the role of news hub is up for grabs more than in the past. Being agile is crucial to succeeding in that situation, though having lots of money, millions of existing customers, and the privilege of having been the hub in the previous system counts for a lot, too.

Who’s ideas are inspiring your own work at outside.in right now?

The idea of Yahoo’s new FireEagle service is inspiring. FireEagle is a feature that allows people to give their current location to trusted third party applications, so that those applications can send them content relevant to what’s directly around them. If Yahoo can get that in wide use, that could have really interesting effects on how local content gets distributed and read.

Also, the things that users are doing with Twitter is really interesting right now. When the earthquake in China happened, someone set up a Twitter feed called chinaquakewatch that tracked people who were in the quake area using Twitter. You could watch up-to-the-second eyewitness accounts coming in from halfway around the world. That’s the very far end of that news spectrum I was talking about, and it’s exciting to see it taking shape.

Finally, Clay Shirky’s recent book Here Comes Everybody is hugely inspiring. It’s very insightful as far as the big picture on how web technology is transforming society. Clay argues that we’re still at the early stages of that transformation, and that the bulk of it has yet to come. That’s exciting to think about. Keeps me thinking about the future, which is what I like to do.

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