Once again my mindless voyage of reading and vacuuming newspapers around the world (A bad habit i picked up when i was 14 years old) has led to another interesting find http://www.OHmynews.com (Founded in 2000). An English version is also available for the rest of us.
Well this site isn’t exactly new and isn’t exactly the latest web 2.0. It is however a site that works, a site that puts newspaper journalists and citizens on similar footing, a site that generates $6.5 million in revenues every year (not a significant sum but we must consider it is primarily a South Korean based website), a site that should have switched on light bulbs in the newspaper industry.
Citizen Journalism as the name suggest is exactly that. The site has over 50,000 reporters coming from all walks of life (activists to house wives) and despite of the meagre payment $20 per article, it is getting a huge response in South east Asia. As stated before the website itself provides value and recognition to the users and hence users often tend to overlook the price factor. This is the reason why Youtube is the king of the hill and Revver is not. Youtube is a community, revver is a money orientated market.
There is nothing fanciful about the site, what it does do is follow the golden rules laid out by all the Key bloggers on web 2.0 and community space.
Here’s a general list in simple English and in no particular order:
1) Content and User Content
2) Community development
3) Scalability
4) User Friendly
5) Hyper social
6) Features: Web blogs, Forums, Wikis, open API, Web services, RSS and efficient technologies such as AJAX
7) Networks and Networking
8 ) Rich Internet Applications
Feel free to add to this list!
Danial Jameel
Interesting read! I would like to add the aspect of security as well in web 2.0 sites. Today more than ever Security continues to be a major issues for Websites and web users alike.
James
Personally I believe Community is the the crucial make or break aspect for the web 2.0 hypersocial sites in cyberspace today. That is the reason why Youtube worked and Google video did not. Same reason why MYSpace worked over Geocities or Yahoo personal homepages
Hi,
Can you also please post the link to the english version of the site, I can’t seem to find it. Good Blog, enjoyed reading it!
Hello,
Here is the english version:
http://english.ohmynews.com/
The site came out at 2000 and i’m surprised the news industry still does not get it. Big players have this false impression of invincibility and events like the ones the news industry is facing today are a big wakeup call for them…