When I was in Tokyo last week, Peter Rojas who must be the grandfather of blogging joked, “Thank God I’m not in the editorial business any more.” He was reacting to my need to check in on my RSS to see what the latest stories taking place on the web were for consideration for PSFK publication. Peter used to sweat the need to be up to date as quickly as I do today but after founding two of the largest blogs ever (Gizmodo then Engadget) he moved on to a social platform called gdgt where the readers do the writing.
Having spoken to Peter and other innovators in the online publishing scene, I’m beginning to see a move that threatens to challenge blogging, much of what we consider online publishing and even kill PSFK.
The stage where we was the democratization of publishing that blogging platforms fueled a few years ago seems to have been only a prelude to a longer story about the move from curated content by the few to tailored content by the many. In the last few years we have seen a tremendous power move from traditional publications to blogs and now we will see the move roll further into socially powered publishing.
When I spoke to Dennis Crowley of foursquare the other day about his mobile application that partly acts like a city guide, he told me that he wanted the users, not the fourquare team, to create advice about venues like restaurants or bars and share that info dynamically when a friend was close by to that location. He has no intention of creating all the editorial content about the cities fourquare can be found in himself because it’s just not what users want.
It all seems so obvious but as a publisher of a ‘blog’ I tend to ignore the writing on the wall. For so long we’ve been trying to be the rapid, trusted alternative to several traditional titles – and for a while that’s what the audience wanted but they’ve learned to do much of the gathering and republishing of content themselves in their own social streams and update their Facebook walls. The world has moved on, blogging doesn’t seem to have done so.
PSFK started as a bunch of people sharing links in an online environment with few other alternatives. Since that time Facebook and Twitter and other services have made it easier to share links and for others to judge those links so that others can get to what is considered important news quicker. News is now tailored by the crowd not curated by an expert or other individual.
Some blogs are exploring moves to more social content. On a simple level, there is the integration of social network profiles. Sites like Ypulse use Facebook plugins so that readers can cross-post their comments on the youth marketing site and on their Facebook profile page. On a more progressive level, the huge blog Gawker recently allowed a level of reader self-publishing. A tip-sharing box now gives commenters the ability to post directly to the site using a hashtag-based system. Using hash-tags like #stalker or #tips, readers can add their own stories to the site (although they won’t often make the front page) – can generate their own.
While many traditional publishers seem to be spending time replicating their publications online and catching up to the speed of blogging, I don’t think that’s what people want anymore. Readers don’t want curated content by the few. It’s often slower, less relevant and harder to access than tailored content by the many.
So, I’m left wondering how this will impact PSFK? It will probably return PSFK to its roots and become a “collaborative” site again where the reader/writer/editor definition is blurred. Maybe readers will write alongside regular PSFK contributors and the crowd will select which articles are worth highlighting and sharing. But there may be more – so I ask you guys to leave comments to suggest how PSFK will evolve in the future. Any suggestions?
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What I am looking for when I visit PSFK (or any site really) is interesting content. For PSFK specifically, which I’ve been reading for several months now, is creative ideas from diverse sources.
I get plenty of tech news from Techcrunch, Mashable and others, but that is something of an echo chamber. For me to create something unique in my work, I want to be exposed to a creative furniture craftsman in Sao Paulo or an ingenious architect in Finland and so on. Practical and radically new ideas are hard (invention), but taking something from another field and adapting it to mine (innovation) is easier and more dependable.
Certainly I can find much of this on my own from individual content creators, but this is time-consuming and unrealistic. This is where I see PSFK coming in, as a curator of content. Really, you do much of this already. Where the content comes from, “users” or “writers”, is inconsequential to me. What is important is the skilled editorial decisions being made to decide what surfaces and what doesn’t. Crowd-sourcing can work in some cases (Digg) but, in the case of PSFK, the human element seems to be doing a great job.
Its funny Rojas said he was happy not to be in the editorial business. With all the content out there, I’d hate to be a writer given the (nearly) infinite competition. It is the skilled editor that creates the value by picking out the great from the merely good.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:06 am
@Darren, echo chamber is a good term, like @gapingvoid says. The would-be-curators who’re sharing RTs a mile a minute don’t really add anything other than back-scratching other curators. What PSFK adds is thoughtful space. Content with value-added. We’ve had forums, bulletin boards, whatever for a long time that have been user driven. Both structures will always have a place as people like you, Piers, have something to say worthwhile about what you share. People come to trust sites like PSFK for quality. As long as that remains in central control, the creators of the content could really be anybody. But it is called PSFK.
Peace,
@vinylart
October 29th, 2009 at 11:26 am
still my first stop with my first cup of coffee. keep on keeping on piers and co. fb, twitter, and rss will not trump your relevance… at least for me. why? because I choose to “follow” my niche community of artists, designers, graffiti cats, etc. if my feeds were packed with tech, marketing, and future forecasting, i would be overwhelmed. i come to psfk for that, your thoughtfully curated content. just as i go to formatmag for street stuff, and cnn for world news. fear not big bro. keep shining. *but i do like the idea of returning to a more collaborative, digg-esk, forum style site architecture. dialogs are awesome, when organized properly.
October 29th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Doesn’t curating get kind of boring if there’s no good content to show or share? It would be sad if the good bloggers went away since they, like PSFK, provide stories and insights that challenge us and make us smarter. They don’t just provide data. If the bloggers don’t do that then hopefully someone else will.
More importantly, I’m wondering why you blog? Is it because you love writing and sharing your points of view? That’s what it feels like and if that’s the case, I can’t see why you would stop. If it’s because you feel obligated to publish, well then I can see why you would stop.
Foursquare isn’t doing content because that’s not core to who they are nor do they seem to be driven to write. I think there’s a role for good writers, thinkers and story tellers, whether we call it blogging, tweeting or talking.
October 29th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
People have had guitars forever, but we still go to rock concerts.
We desperately need people with focus, taste and restraint.
Rock on, Piers
October 29th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Daren and most of the other commenters hit the nail on the head… It’s all about the quality of the content. In the case of psfk, I would also add that it’s about the amazing variety of the content. There are umpteen niche sites out there that are very specific, which is fine when you need to get at that precise information. The great thing about psfk is that I am always surprised at some of the strange and wonderful things I come across. Some douchenozzle writer in the New York Times the other day said that it’s no longer about content… It’s about search… Oh yes, and what the hell would you be searching for? psfk may well evolve into something different in terms of delivery and functionality in the times ahead, but I would like to think it will stick to its guns in terms of the quality and range of its content. Don’t go “Wired” on us Piers!
Cheers/George
October 29th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
I think that this is a case of a new medium emerging, but not necessarily one where the old one dies out. Engadget and Gizmodo are still going strong and together have millions of satisfied readers a month, myself among them. I don’t think blogging is going anywhere or dying — I don’t think you’ll find a better primary source for gadget news than Engadget — just that for me personally blogging seems to have reached maturity as a medium and that the innovation and energy is elsewhere now.
In a way that’s a good thing. I had to fight tooth and nail to get respect as a blogger, so to have it be seen as established and boring is a victory when you think about it.
But it’s also true that when I thought about what I wanted to do after Engadget I realized that there was something really interesting happening with the web — it was becoming more social, more dynamic, and more real-time, and I wanted to try and build a gadget site built around those ideas rather than one predicated on a team of editors cranking out posts.
October 30th, 2009 at 12:11 am
this : is important. and i think it speaks to the relevance of PSFK, and Piers Fawkes specifically. in june, i was in a meeting with piers and dan gould, his editor. a lot of people were talking, and piers was writing everything down. at one point he stopped and said privately : everything is important…so when piers takes the time to call out a trend or an extended thought, i tend to stop and take notice. i will continue to access and pay attention to PSFK because : everything is important, and after years of reading his blog, it’s obvious that what he’s about is taking it all in, but presenting a curated view i want to digest.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:29 am
I think most web users are critics, not writers. Good content has to exist for them to act on and put their social print on it. And that content comes from the good writers, who have done enough over time to earn a reputation and thus a following. Sure, there are many wannabe writers in the world, but how many of them are actually good?!
Think about classic literature: you can always SAFELY pick up a classic and expect a good read. But how many of us have the time to give a new writer a chance to impress us?
And how many of us can write that great American novel anyway?!
October 30th, 2009 at 10:10 am
I love the use of the term ‘curator’ as a point of content differentiation, because even though I’ve been told time and again ‘long form blogging’ is toast, there’s always an erudite group of people who wish to splash in the deep end rather than remain in the wading pool of shallow waters, ya know? Viva la difference! (and thank gawd for it, too!)
Here’s hoping thought leaders and ‘broad brushstroke’ folks don’t ditch the canvas of colorful prose. Besides, we need more solutions-based analysis and less ‘announcement’ driven data. (says the windy, long form blogger heh) ;-)
October 30th, 2009 at 11:45 am
One more thing, Piers, as one of Seth’s ‘purple cows’ I have to add that there’s a strong tradition of certain individuals adapting to whatever the communications gene pool du’jour may be, often straddling the lines of innovation, conversation, and deeper thought and using multiple mediums for outreach with different content parameters. Ultimately, I think we’re all destined to be morphing mavericks, so rock on…you’re great!
October 30th, 2009 at 11:56 am
“… Facebook and Twitter and other services have made it easier to share links and for others to judge those links so that others can get to what is considered important news quicker.”
But, if there are no bloggers what links will we have to share with our networks?
@LPT
October 30th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
To paraphrase Steve Jobs…curated blogs don’t have to fail for crowdsourced content to succeed. If anything, I see sites like PSFK only becoming more valuable as the signal/noise ratio out there on the web continues to degrade.
Is it interesting to see what everyone on Mashable thinks is cool? Sure. Does that somehow replace my reliance on PSFK for less obvious, more insightful stories. No way.
Where the crowd has a big advantage is in getting to the story first. But that’s not why we read PSFK, that’s why we have Twitter.
October 30th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
I wouldn’t be very interested in reading sites with mostly user-generated content. This is why I’ve never spend any time trawling through Youtube videos to find something good – I rely on my favourite bloggers to do the work for me. I go to my favourite blogs and websites because I get to appreciate and trust the author and rely on them to deliver consistently good material. I will choose quality over speed/quantity any day.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
I’ve spent 1.5 hours on this comment trying to get thru this wall to communicate how dumbfounded I am that you really relate to yourself as a ‘publisher of a blog’.
PSFK as a source of news for me, a site to connect myself to what’s happening in the realm of trends and ideas that are being realized in the world…. way, waaay, wwwwaaaayyy bigger than a blog…. HERE is a source of inspiration, a space to connect with sanity knowing that people ARE creating sensible products, REALising dreams, causing projects that provoke the imagination, here’s where I got to participate in a global co-opportunity project… here is more than a blog, and you are more than a publisher.
Question for you… if you can’t see the writing on the wall, which wall are you looking at, here….. or Facebook??? Perhaps all that’s missing is a really powerful way for people to interact WITH PSFK so that you can tangibly see, hear and get the difference you guys make on the planet. Distinguish what’s missing, the presence of which makes a difference… then provide it.
October 31st, 2009 at 9:58 pm
argh! lost my comment – fix that bit but the rest is great!
PSFK is a trusted curator of interesting innovations from around the world. Keep searching new good quality sources from around the world.
That’s the abbreviated comment!
:-)
November 2nd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Well, thank you guys. This has been a very interesting debate – and I really appreciate the support.
I still think that the platform needs to evolve. I still don’t quite know how but it needs to become more useful in people’s modern lives.
Much to dwell on.
Piers
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:50 pm
We have been having this debate for a couple of months, where to go and how to get there. It is endlessly frustrating to find a post that you put hours of loving care into get 1800 page views, and then throwing up a timewaster on LED encrusted eyelashes gets a hundred times that because of the power of DIGG.
There is nothing wrong with the medium of blogs, the problem is how the for-profit sites monetize it. That is why I think Fast Company and Atlantic are doing such a good job, they are bringing the discipline and editing of good magazines into the blog world and, I think, with their professionalism, will eat our lunch.
It is time to layer up, to get editors and researchers and become real electronic magazines. You tried it with IF, but maybe that was just too soon.
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:02 pm
It definitely gets tricky with user-generated content. Ideas are shared faster, but authenticity and accuracy can be a bit off. A good mix of trusted PSFK official writings and reader-generated content is the key me thinks.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:40 pm