Next before the heavy duty research is Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler. It was reviewed in New York Times Book Review. Here are the authors making a pitch for their book:

Full disclosure, I am an unpaid advisor to Spot.us.

You can read my full responses to Glaser’s email inquiries here.

• People submit tips
• Journalists pitch stories
• People fund pitches or journalists to do the stories
• Stories are reported

Clay Shirky in his book Here Comes Everybody (Chapter 11), lays out three rules for successful social action sites like this to work. All three rules must fuse together to have a chance for success :

1. Is there a plausible promise? — Why would anyone want to join? In Spot.us the plausible promise is that you can help fund important journalism that might not otherwise get done. So for me Spot.us passes point one.
2. Are the tools effective? — Will the tools at the site make effective collaboration possible or at least manageable? Will the tools help people approach the promise together? At Spot.us you find a story you like and you push a button and contribute, just as you would at Kiva. It’s very easy to understand and simple to use. So for me Spot.us passes rule number two.
3. Is there an acceptable bargain with the users? — What is expected of the user and are the returns to the user enough to make the user want to participate? Will people help underwrite journalism before they see it? Will the stories have enough value to users that people will want to try it out and then keep coming back? That’s the key question for the success of Cohn’s experiment.

Lots of the story ideas that get posted will not get funded, but that is okay. The key is to have enough out there that people have some choices. The best ideas get funded, the others wilt away — at least that’s the plausible promise.  It’s like Meetup. Many group ideas are posted, a few stick and people find worth in them. Will Spot.us be as successful as Meetup.com? Stay tuned, but one thing is certain this Knight News Challenge winner is  an important experiment worth watching.

Update: As pointed out by Brendan in the comments, in full disclosure, I am an unpaid, volunteer advisor to Spot.us. But what I write here is not seen first by the folks at Spot.us. It is exactly what I would have written directly to them but went publically with it here, although I had advance notice that the site was going live. Thanks Brendan for the pointing out my oversight.

When the magazine Radar announced it was shutting down last Friday, its Washington editor Ana Marie Cox was left with a seat on John McCain’s plane but no one to pay for it.

So Cox reached out for public support via her blog and Twitter. She has a running commentary at her blog on her personal fundraising. As of this post, it seems she is up to about $10,000. I have emailed her to check her interest in the Representative Journalism concept. We would love to help her build a Rep J community around the work she does. More later.

Free .TV show from Ustream

Also the forum set up by Bill Densmore of the Media Giraffe project, had several interesting presentations on topics such as teaching journalism literacy, the AP and copyright, social networking tools and teaching citizen journalism. If you have time, they are all worth downloading.

I’ve been watching ProPublica. I think ProPublica is a great development in this area. But I am saddened by something that Paul Steiger told me a while back, that he was deluged with applications from people who would have been theoretically working at some of the nation’s greatest news organizations on investigative reporting that they would have been doing, but now either were out of jobs or were insecure enough in their own jobs to think that ProPublica, even with its three years of funding secured, was a better bet for them.

That, I think, reflects about what the real climate is in this country for this kind of expensive, vitally important kind of news. 

Here is more from Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief of ProPublica and former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal:

…our budget is $10 million a year. But we do have in 25 journalists the largest single team of investigative reporters in the United States.

That’s not very much money and that’s Jones’ point, who says it is time for find a more viable model. Foundations are not enough. They have limited funding, don’t have the long-term resources and will fund start-ups, but lose interest and move onto other things.

Why can’t that viable model be everyday citizen support? My Representative Journalism project is fully built on the premise that audience will pay, if you give them something of value. I mean I hardly have any hair left and I still pay well over a $100 a year to get haircuts. Nothing is free. Why should the news be free?

Each day we read of another news organization making cuts. Eventually, the pool of quality news will shrink to almost nothing. That’s when I am convinced those of us in the public who love news will step forward to start paying the price. Yes, pay attention to the foundations for start-up money, that’s how the Harnisch Family Foundation is helping Rep J, but really start thinking how we can we mobilize the public. Just look at Barack Obama’s campaign, he has proven that by turning to the vast funding power of the public, hundreds of millions can be raised. Raising a $1 million in a day is not unheard of, Moveon.org has also shown its amazing power to do the same.

So where is the campaign to raise money for real news. We have some nascent efforts, like David Cohn’s Spot.us and Hal Plotkin’s Reelchanges.org, but they are slight whispers. Let’s do a scream out — let’s show the world what life would be like without news. Let’s borrow the techniques of the politicians and advocacy groups. Let’s be the advocates for reinventing a higher quality, even more ethical journalism. We can do it, but, to borrow a phrase, we just have to believe in change.

I will be moderating a panel on Friday afternoon Feb. 22 entitled Ubiquitous Journalism. What does that mean? As one of the journalists and not one of the computer folks, I am not 100 percent sure. But here is how it was described to me by Nicholas Diakopoulos, one of the conference organizers:

Ubiquitous Journalism is our invented term for how the data flowing from large networks of sensors and/or people can be applied to journalism. In the Ubiquitous Journalism Panel we’re exploring big news data flows, whether they’re coming from lots of digital sensors in confined geography, or from lots of human reporters globally. The discussion will point to how these streams and the systems that handle them lead to public knowledge and public impact.

Of course, journalists, at least this former one, might be a bit intimidated by that description, but that’s why we have to get together with the computational folks. I have some serious reading to get done before my moderation. Here is the whole panel:

• Jenny Preece, Dean of the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland, developing 911.gov, a prototype Community Response Grid
• Mark Hansen, Co-PI of the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing , creator of sensorbase.org
• Amra Tareen, Founder and CEO, AllVoices.com
• Leah Culver,  Founder of Pownce, a San Francisco-based micro-blogging service

Here too is a new course Computation and Journalism at Ga. Tech being taught by the conference organizer Irfan Essa. I am having lunch with him next week and talking to this class about civic and citizen journalism 

Very cool stuff. I am excited by the possibilities.

“How far we’ve come, Where we’re going” should impact the format of the conference.

It was my distinct impression that the social media landscape in Atlanta changed after SoCon07. Whereas before there didn’t seem to be much going on, afterwards there seemed to be an explosion of conversations about social media happening around the city. From Podcamp Atlanta, to the Social Media Club, to Startup Weekend Atlanta, to panel discussions about Web 2.0 at professional associations across the board, it seems Atlanta has come a long way in climbing the social media learning curve this past year.

I’ve heard similar stories from a number of other people who attended SoCon07, and even a few who were unable to but noticed a similar trend. Whether it was the catalyst, or just coincidentally within the right time frame, it’s clear that SoCon07 was held at an inflection point for these conversations.

And so a year later we’re coming together for SoCon08 to look forward, but I think it’s equally important to look back. As they say, in order to understand where we are going we need to understand where we’ve come from. This isn’t just about understanding how far the technology has come, it’s about understanding the collective story. As far as I know no one has the bigger picture of what’s going on here (yet), but we all have our own bits and pieces of the story to share.

Last year we had a great main session where we explored all kinds of ideas, stories, opinions, etc. This year I think the format should remain largely unchanged, but with the added focus on sharing our bits and pieces of the larger story. The theme “How far we’ve come, Where we’re going,” resonates not just as a feel good phrase, but as a guide for the main session. I think it should be divided into two sections: one retroactive, and one forward looking. Both sections should be given equal time. The conversation should be moderated such that we don’t stay on any particular topic area for too long, but explore a number of individual stories within different themes enough to see how well they resonate with the larger group.

What kinds of stories should we be airing about this past year? How social media has impacted our lived this past year personally and professionally. Personal stories regarding the rise of Twitter and Facebook. Stories about how our businesses have been impacted positively and negatively. Challenges we’ve faced. Conversations we’ve had. Meetings we’ve had and attended. etc.

As for where we’re going this next year? New events and initiatives that are being organized around and/or with social media. New business directions. Unexpected personal opportunities that are opening up. Areas of concern and trepidation. Larger trends in the tech industry. Larger trends socially. What would people like to see happen this next year? Plans, predictions, etc.

I think it’s perfect that Jeff is doing the opening for SoCon08 because of his unique view. He’s been active locally, as well as nationally, organized a number of events, but has also been steeped in the technology. As far as telling bits and pieces of the larger story go, he touches the social as well as the technical, and definitely has some great past events and future plans to draw from to set the stage for SoCon08.

 So that’s where we are headed in a general sense. Go to the SoCon08 site and register now.