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Suggested User List, reloaded

Wednesday, June 03, 2009 by Dave Winer.

When the Guardian ran a piece over the weekend on the Suggested User List, my interest, and others' re-stoked. Then I got an idea from Sarah Delman, pondered it, wrote some code, published the results. Now we know more about the source of the SUL. More back and forth, some of it heated, then it comes together for me -- we lack leadership. I can't provide it, I'm not trying to. I'm trying to be an provocateur, a role I often cast myself into.  

As I've said before, I believe Twitter is a chapter in a story that's been playing out for a long time. It's both the best news system and the worst. No pictures, no video, limited metadata, and it has an increasingly confining 140-character limit. But it connects people like no system before has. It's both the backroom for journalism and the delivery mechanism. A lot of power there. But imho it's not the last word. 

The remaining news organizations will move onto twitter-like systems over the next few years. The news system of the future is electronic and real-time. The stakes are huge now. If I were in their shoes, I'd be thinking very hard about how I want these systems to evolve as environments for journalism. I'd stop worrying about squeezing Google for a handout and start thinking about how to grab some of the PE-ratio for myself. 

But the lions of the news industry lack imagination and chutzpah. Where are the strategists, the bizdev people of the news industry? They're plotting paywalls, when they should be creating and linking new conduits with graphics, sound and movies.  

The business model? The same one that served Google in its early years. People are so excited about what you're doing that they pour cash all over you.  

The SUL is a small piece of the big picture, but it's an important one. For all the reasons I've said. No need to repeat it. Now I'm going to let everyone else worry about this for a while.