I'm their leader. Which way did they go?

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I'm their leader. Which way did they go?

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I'm at We Media in London. Generally, there is a lot of dissatisfaction amongst the bloggers about the content and tone of this conference. They feel marginalized which - given the name of the conference - is ironic. I personally don't feel marginalized (but I’m pushy and insensitive). I’ve had a chance to meet some good people who I wouldn’t otherwise so it’s been worth attending.

The major criticism I would level is that there is a real lack of detail and substance to much of the discussion. There are lots of platitudes and lip service to collective journalism but that just makes me think of Microsoft’s desire during the bubble to ‘embrace and extend’. Generalizations are meaningless, generally speaking.

I think many of the participants here would benefit from seeing actual examples of so called 'citizen journalism' but we haven’t seen Digg, Youtube, Flickr, Newsvine or NowPublic. There seems to be almost a willful blindness on the part of the 'leaders' of media. For those of us who think that old media has some value and should be preserved in some fashion this is cause for concern. Endless discussion about TRUST will do nothing to save mainstream media from the competitive threat that is already stealing audience, influence and revenue.