Emptybottle.org: OhMyNews? Bah.

So Tom asked me about OhMyNews.com, which has been popping up recently around blogistan and generating some buzz.

(Just as a trivia-question aside : the ejaculation 'Oh my god!' is one that you hear almost constantly here in Korea. It was the tagline of a popular comedian a while back, and even young Koreans who don't speak any English other than the always-useful 'OK!' and perennial favorite 'Do you like kimchi?' know it and use it with grating regularity. I assume the URL is a reference to that, although I might well be wrong. It happens.)

Well, OhMyNews is pretty neat, sure, and apparently did have some influence in the election of Noh Moo Hyun recently (which is a whole other story), but I don't think it's either quite as democratic or as elegant as it's being chalked up to be. The basic gist of the Korean boilerplate at the site (according to my wife) states that you can send them an article anywhere up to ten 'pages', for which you are held personally (and legally) responsible in terms of veracity. If it's acceptable, they edit it and pay you for it. Discussions are hung off the individual pieces that make it to the site. It doesn't seem as if there is any reputation system or moderation beyond once-off editorial filtering and smoothing of language.

So not quite as groundbreaking as has been suggested, perhaps. More like a less-sophisticated kuro5hin.org for the Korean non-geeknoscenti, in my humble. Interesting, but more as a concept than a reality. And the concept is a pretty cool one.

We - the few, the involuted, the snarky! - at Metafilter got all hot and bothered about the idea few months back, and spent a good while trying to figure out how to build our own and entirely too much time talking about what to call the thing. Even so, prototypes were made, discussions were held (since disappeared from the server where they were hosted, sadly), thoughts were thunk, a corner of the MeFi Wiki was reserved, and then the two (much beloved, but nonetheless daunting) 800-pound gorillas in our metamidst, Rusty from kuro5hin.org and Matt from Mefi itself revealed that they were planning to build their own version of a collaborative journalism site, and in spite of their exhortations to us to carry on without their direct involvement and just keep bashing away at our plans, the enthusiasm of our little ad-hocracy kinda dissipated. After all, if there are two people out there who have the experience and know-how in the granular details of building and finely balancing the vagaries and conflicting tidal pulls of large online communities, it's them.

[/brownnose]

Matt recently mentioned in an unrelated thread in Metatalk that they were hoping to have something to show the world by July 1st. I hope this is not a premature outing, and that I'm not pissing him off too much by talking about it now, but I really want to see this thing, and the comments he and rusty have made about it are a matter of public record, so you heard it here first, folks.

Unless you read Metatalk, of course. Then you heard it here second.

Ohmynews? Bah. I'm waiting to see the real thing.

About This Post

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Well, this is a post to the personal website Emptybottle.org. It was posted by your genial host stavrosthewonderchicken on May 20, 2003, and is titled OhMyNews? Bah.. It was published to the categories: Korea-related. In any of those places you might well find other similar things that will bring you Super Double Happiness.

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Comments: You got fingers, right?

10 Comments | 5 Trackbacks

1
Matt Haughey said

Hey stav, I wanted to stress that I thought the mojofilter talk went pretty well, and I never meant to do an end-run around everyone and say I was taking it into my own hands with Rusty. On the contrary, I watched things progress and was pleased with much of the talk and the ideas that came out of it. It's a huge, daunting project that will require many, many people working together. I was too busy to chime in when it started, but in the late spring I got an idea to do a smaller project that could use some of the collaborative journalism ideals, mentioned it to rusty who happened to be thinking about something along the same lines and we grew it from there. It's not going to be as all-encompassing as the original idea, which I think is a good thing, as it'll serve as a beta test of the ideas in a very specific case. It has a time component, so it'll have an end, at which time we can look back at what worked, what didn't, and roll that into the grander vision. I've been watching OhMyNews for a while, and am glad to hear it could be done better. Nothing is more demoralizing than thinking you have a wonderful, original idea that is going to change the world, and then you notice several companies have already done it. I think we'll be ready to launch with something at July 1st, but it'll be a preliminary set of functionality and will grow throughout the fall.

May 20, 2003 10:20 AM
2
stavrosthewonderchicken said

Thanks for the update, Matt. Didn't mean to imply that you and Rusty were co-opting or anything - I don't think any of us in the original flush of enthusiasm thought so, and you guys were clear that you thought we ought to keep going with it. For my part at least, though, I figured if anybody could do it right, and attach some brandname weight to it (important because critical-mass userbase size could be vital out of the gate, I think, to make a success of it), it was you two. So I'm very keen to see what happens.

May 20, 2003 4:10 PM
3
TCB said

Expect some more visitors today.

May 21, 2003 5:12 AM
4
stavrosthewonderchicken said

*waits* *waits* *eats the cookies he baked* *waits*

May 21, 2003 2:12 PM
5
dg said

Where are all the fucking cookies gone! I was glad to see that the spirit of the son/daughter of mojo has not died and I am anxiously awaiting July 1 to see what comes of it. As corny as it may sound, I feel it could be something that actually "makes a difference" in some way.

May 21, 2003 8:24 PM
6
Gen Kanai said

Stav, Matt- just wanted to make sure you knew about JanJan, a startup citizen news service in Japan that seems to be modeled after OhMyNews. Tim Clark does a good writeup on JanJan in Japan Media Review.

June 6, 2003 9:50 PM
7
stavrosthewonderchicken said

Thanks for the update, Gen.

June 7, 2003 6:12 PM
8
Patton Price said

Stav- Thanks for bringing this back up. I remember being all excited during the early discussion phase and then sort of shitting out at some point. I'm glad that Matt and Rusty are trudging along, and somehow I seriously doubt that will handle this in any way that alienates the personalities and energy that came to the fore during the conversation that inspired Mojo.

June 7, 2003 7:15 PM
9
rusty said

All I ask is that slack be granted when July 1 rolls around. I know I'm not ready yet, and I won't even be able to touch the thing again till the middle of this month. July 1 is one of those purposely-aggressive dates to make us get asses in gear, and progress is being made, but I wouldn't be surprised if it slipped a wee bit from that. And, of course, the more people talk about it the more we're forced to do it, so keep talking.

June 7, 2003 9:31 PM
10
stavrosthewonderchicken said

And, of course, the more people talk about it the more we're forced to do it, so keep talking. Heh. That's kinda what I was hoping...

June 7, 2003 9:47 PM

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference OhMyNews? Bah.:

OhMyNews.com from d o t - c o m a *:o)
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OhMyNews from Emptybottle : Coasters
OhMyNews (which I pooh-poohed quite a while back, perhaps prematurely, here) now has a beta English-language page, and is looking to incorporate English citizen-reporting. [this is good]... [Read More]