Moolah is Largely What Separates Citizen's Media from Mainstream Media

Robert Scoble, John Furrier and I have started up an important discussion: where does citizen's media end and mainstream media begin? This is not such an easy question to answer today as it was a year ago. In fact, I am going to change my blog tagline for 2007 (you can help me here). It's too 2005.

Let's first start with a related term, social media. The line between mainstream media and what we commonly call social media has completely blurred. The reason? The mainstream media have done a nice job of adopting "our technologies "- blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS, comments, virtual worlds, widgets, social networking... you name it. Most media web sites now have some level of interactivity. Further, they are increasingly using a writing style that's far more conversational than they did just a few years ago.

Meanwhile, lots of people are making a nice living as media entrepreneurs. I think social media is a term that does not carry as much weight here as it used to. All media is social. The barrier to entry has lowered.

So then what is the differentiator between "citizen's media" and the mainstream? Well, there is a line in the sand and it, my friends, is cash. That's really the only thing today that separates the pros from the ams (e.g. amateurs).

if you run a blog as your primary source of income or a podcast company (e.g. TechCrunch, GigaOm, Weblogs Inc, Gawker Media, Podtech.net and Podshow), you are media. Why? Because advertising, events and/or subscriptions are your primary source of revenue. You don't sit at the kid's table anymore like the rest of us do.

Now, it's certainly true that these sites can operate with fewer church-state restrictions than the big boys do and at a lower run rate. And it's also a fact that the big guys often have more experience and resources. However, there's no purpose in separating those who blog for cash from the people who write for big media sites.

To me it's like the players in the minor leagues and the major leagues. All of them are professional ballplayers. Some just make more money than the others. Minor leaguers also make more mistakes. Same thing here.

Technorati Tags: media, Citizen's Media, Social Media