TheWayoftheWeb

There’s a tendency to look at User Generated Content and online collaboration as an easy way to create content, products and services without some of the hassles of a traditional business.

And it’s easy to understand why: No ground rent, no equipment or infrastructure costs, no limitations on who can be involved etc. And no need to necessarily pay contributors.

But it isn’t an easy option, and there are several major risks to any online collaboration which requires more than one or two people:

Trust: How quickly do you place your trust in people to deliver on their promises, to deliver them on time, and not to take good ideas elsewhere?

Management: Is there some kind of leadership or guidance to keep things moving, and to clearly articulate the vision and strategy etc – which may have been decided democratically. How do you keep momentum going and inspire people to continue even when things can be tough?

Politics: How do you deal with disagreements? Infighting? Rivalry?

Reward: How do you supply a justifiable return to contributors for their time? Financial or otherwise?

Communication: How do you keep people updated, and make things simple and easy to contribute?

Those are just the first few problems off the top of my head. The reason they come to mind is that I have basically decided to cut all responsibility for Disposable Media, leaving only the possibility of contributing the occasional blog post or article at some point.

It’s been a lot of fun, particularly when I was given the honour of being Editor, and we had a fast growth in audience – all from a group of people working for no financial reward and contributing articles, designs etc via a forum. In my time on DM, I only ever met two of my colleagues in real life in the space of two years!

But having realised that I don’t have the time and energy to drive DM forward, I stepped down to take a back seat and a more advisory role. And what then happened was quite painful to watch, as some infighting and sabotage began, communication became worse, trust was lost, and many people started drifting away.  I don’t place all the blame on the Editor who replaced me, as there have definitely been people who have used a period of change for their own agenda.

Hopefully it will rise from the ashes, as over the years it’s had some very talented people, and some great articles and content. On the bright side, it’s shown me that although I was far from perfect, and made several mistakes, I did achieve a lot in keeping things going, and always trying to drive more organised and efficient systems to make life easier for everyone – and it also highlighted the need for communication and rewards, which will hopefully help me on other projects.

To be honest, the real risk to online magazines isn’t just the problems of collaboration – it’s also the arrival of new aggregated delivery services in a magazine format – i.e. systems that take your favourites from services like Last.fm, and then produce a custom magazine around them, like Idiomag. It plays on a simple philosophy of mine which is becoming more and more realistic and reinforced – ‘The most effective targeting of an individual, is the targeting they do for themselves‘

I’ve been using Twitter for quite a while (@badgergravling if you’re inclined), and I’ve found it an invaluable place for communication, debate, and refining ideas.

And I’ve also got used to both the concept of following 1000s of people, and combining real conversation, and the growing number of automated blog/website feeds using services like Twitterfeed. But whether you’re Disposable Media or The Guardian, if you’re not responding to direct messages and @ replies, then you’re really missing the point, and not getting the best benefit. Having set up the Disposable Media feed, I’ve been guilty of leaving it too much already, as I’ve concentrated more on my personal endeavours…but even with limited time, everyone is guaranteed a reply eventually – better than The Guardian manages.

Some services – The BBC, The Guardian, etc can offer enough interesting content in specific enough areas to get away with it. Just. But if you’re not a leading news agency etc, you’re better off using Twitter for personal discussion rather than relying on an automated feed to do all the work…

Three things are going to have an effect on my somewhat erratic blog posting regime over the coming month, so I figure it’s time to share…

Firstly, impending fatherhood is likely to have major implications for my work-life balance, and particularly anything I do in addition to escaping from the house 8 hours a day. So forgive me if posts tend to stop for a while during the adjustment to not being the biggest baby in the house, or they tend to be posted at 2am, and cover the topics like nappies, not being able to sleep, and the merits of microwave baby bottle sterilisers!

With that in mind, and after a great 18 months or so, I’ve decided to step down as Editor of Disposable Media. Having had our first ever real life meeting about DM, there’s a clear vision of what we want to achieve over the next 12 months, and I’ve got a lot of confidence and faith in Keith Andrew, the new Editor of DM. However, my escape hasn’t entirely succeeded, as I’ve somehow found myself volunteered to become Editor-in-Chief! It’s not quite the right title, but will do for the moment, as I’m now basically looking after the strategy, direction, marketing etc, and more longterm stuff, and letting Keith do all the hard work of getting each issue out!

And lastly, I’ve got a stinking cold/flu and possibly a chest infection. Which is nice…very helpful when I’m trying to get as much sorted as possible before paternity leave – including several presentations etc… Try evangelising about social media when you’ve got tears in your eyes from trying not to sneeze!

Sadly my attempts to blog more frequently have been slightly inhibited by impending fatherhood, some pressing tasks at work, and what I suspect is a lurking chest infection. So I’m falling back on some quick thoughts and some quick links to share some half-baked ideas before the weekend.

• Firstly, the idea of a ‘music tax‘ is an abomination in so many, many ways, I probably don’t need to add to the outcry. But just for the record, it sounds like the dying cry of the dinosaurs before the meteor hits.

• Great inspirational post here, by Andrew Bruce Smith, on how you could start a PR company using Google and a credit card….
• I’ve been doing a lot of research into buzz/social media monitoring and Net Promoter Scores. And this is an interesting article on the topic.

And there’s probably a certain irony in the fact both @brendancooper and @jemimakiss either linked to their own, or someone else’s article about how Twitter shouldn’t be just a newswire/RSS feed, and for whatever reason missed/ignored/didn’t have time to answer my responses! I don’t blame them, as it can be hard to keep track of @ messages without an external service, but it made me laugh a bit. Especially as Jemima’s article is for The Guardian, which commits exactly the same crime: e.g. @guardiantech.

And now to home and either bed, blogging for Disposable Media, Rainbow Six, or a combination of the three. Tomorrow will be the first annual meeting in real life of some of the DM team, which’ll be quite interesting, as I’ve know them virtually for 18 months, produced about 5 issues with them, and now I’m going to have to buy them some beers as we decide how to make progress for the next 12 months…