The world is watching Citizen Journalism

Everybody in the "citizen journalism neighborhood is sitting bolt-upright these days. Traditional newspapers, broadcasters, news service providers (like Reuters, et al) are staring at sites like Newsvine and NowPublic, as well as at Yahoo's You Witness News and CNN's iReport.

There's a particular quality to these stares, reflecting an intelligent, hunger for information about crowd-powered news. Hopeful, yes; but also intensely diligent, as this article in today's Washington Post reveals.

"Newspapers and television networks actively urge readers and viewers to send in their pictures of newsworthy events to supplement the work of professional photographers. And Internet sites help distribute them widely -- sites such as YouTube and Flickr, where anyone can post their photos and video for public consumption, are wildly popular."

All of us who are playing and prospecting in these fields are watching these developments closely. For those of us who support citizen journalists with technology tools and other resources, we're listening closely to our members, who want us all to succeed.

In an ideal world, to succeed would only seem to require a steady stream of brilliant work from dedicated volunteers. But volunteers require significant support, and building tools and extending resources requires investments, obviously.

Our members understand this - and want us to be both smart and socially conscientious. There's a steady stream of commentary in this regard that I watch daily - from the entire field of CJ. These comments invariably teach me more about the passion we all share for news that's done differently, and today one appeared on our colleagues' site, Newsvine.

The comment goes straight to questions about how CJ sites conduct their promotional activities. Should it be done at all? Is it appropriate to consider things like search engine optimization (techniques designed to get pages noticed by Google and others).