Behold - The Power of The Amateur

Posted by marcus

October 11, 2007

I know we’re just getting started here, but I thought it might be nice to introduce some ideas about this new little community of ours. Perhaps it would be important to lead off with this:

The World Is Changing.

That’s what I find so compelling about this medium of social media. As an example, check out the City Pages from last week — there’s a feature announcing this website. Yeah for us!So I thought I’d go over to the City Pages website and grab the article for our blog - but there’s no online version of the the paper! Dad-gum-it!In today’s digital world, this doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I guess from a traditional media perspective, maybe it does. We’ll just have to keep faith that one day, The City Pages will come around so people in Guam will know what goes on here.The thing about being online is that the greater population has evolved - perhaps not as quickly here in rural America, but it is undeniable.Traditional media is not very well-suited to change. Consider magazines, books, direct mail, newspapers or even the yellow pages; when an article is written anywhere in these mediums, it’s done. Corrections or updates can be made the following issue, subscription or printing, but for the most part, what’s done is done. It remains a rather rigid and slow means of providing information.New media (online content) is instantaneous. A post can be modified, changed or deleted at the flick of a keystroke at any given moment. A photo could be added, a comment, or any number of media files.Traditional media can’t do that. If a magazine, newspaper, or book has a typo and it goes to print - it’s too late.Here at Citizen Wausau, you have the ability to interact with an article. Anyone can start a conversation, stir debate, correct an error. With older media, it’s a letter to the editor, which may or may not ever see the eyes of the public.On top of that, traditional media struggles with trust issues - primarily because it boils down to advertising money. No business would want to intentionally tick off a revenue source; it would be economic suicide. By staying the course and not rocking the boat, advertising buyers remain content and continue spending advertising dollars. So where can people go to discuss more complex issues?That’s why this new medium of blogs and citizen journalism is exciting, yet somewhat terrifying. It’s great that information can travel quickly, but who is accountable to accurately convey that information? Try wrapping your mind around the distributed nature of the Internet. Anyone can write a post, empowering the individual to take power away from ruling old media, and say whatever it is they wish to convey.A blog with only a little influence can gain momentum quickly. With a tool like Digg.com, even an understated message can have a great impact. Why? Because the messages are easily transferable. Add a link, a pingback, a comment, bookmarks, they all drive traffic, and traffic has opinion. If the idea is considered viable by the majority, it gets past along with lightening speed.Consider that:

Anyone can start a blog.
Anyone can open a web company.
Everyone can have a voice.
Everyone can have an audience or influence.

Is it any wonder why traditional media is struggling to adjust?Now, in the case of Citizen Wausau, our voice or audience may never be big, but that’s kind of the point. Our community revolves around a singular common interest: our city of Wausau.So what if a small group of people were passionate about a worthy cause in Wausau? Could we explode on the scene with a united, powerful voice? Consider what changes in our community this voice could do!By simply tapping our common interests & passions, anything can become possible. So Citizen Wausau gets away from a mass market. It becomes a series of niche markets making a lot of noise.We may be amateurs, but we can still change things.

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