Catching up with the Newsosaur

Playing catch-up this week after the first week of summer classes, and so I am getting to read some back posts from Alan Mutter (aka the "Newsosaur").

His "Brooking no further babble" on the uneven start of citizen journalism sites is a good read, as are the comments that follow. Mutter finds a lot not to like. One of his themes is that, as I have said, we are quickly learning the "if you build it they will write" optimism from some early quarters won't work. But as one commenter also said: The real judge will be the community. If they're reading it and contributing, it really doesn't matter much if we think it's boring. If the community doesn't find much of value, it won't take long for these sites to die on the vine.

His other post "Never write a headline longer than ..." has six quotes worth memorizing -- and one from Al Neuharth just to be aware of (grin).