by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
I have talked at great length about this subject, but it’s fun to daydream about it. No one is paying me any attention and I’m kind of cooling my heels intellectually until I get a new camera and pursue that life. Having said that, I think a service based on the concepts of Usenet could do wonders for the publishing business.
I say this because instead of sending people a link to a site like you have to do with Twitter, with this proposed service, you could come to some agreement whereby a link detailing breaking news could be shot directly into the service in such a way that not only would people be able to inline edit it as part of the discussion, but the original ads associated with the article would be preserved.
This is important because people will be engaging with the content in a really proactive manner and the ads associated with the content would be viewed heavily. This might, just might, help with interaction of ads in such a way that it could boost the bottom line of online journalism.
This doesn’t even begin to address the issue of how you would know a lot more about users than otherwise because they would come to a newsgroup, or “Group” as I call them, for a very specific reason. They would not only come to a newsgroup for a specific topic, but the “patron” of the Group, a verified account holder, would be directly connected to the group because they created it.
This brings up all kinds of interesting advertising scenarios. Imagine a full page ad for this or that widget as a post in a group that was hotly debating the merits of the widget. Or something. Something like that. I would be interesting. I really like this concept. I think it has a huge potential upside monetarily.
But as I keep saying, no one is listening to me. No one cares about what I have to say, so this is more about me relaxing on a cold winter evening than anything else. Here are some more thoughts below.
