CNN Creates Yet Another Aggregator Site. Fans Go Wild.

Mitch Wagner's article, CNN Creates Citizen Journalism Channels On Web, In Second Life , has a pretty robust bit of branding in the title. After all, citizen journalism doesn't come from Big Media - Big Media is just trying to remain relevant in a period where they cannot compete with all the people out there who are doing their bit in talking about the world. And the headline, therefore, is misleading - CNN didn't create any citizen journalism channels on the web. That's like claiming to have invented jump-rope. The only ways I can rationalize that headline are:

• Hubris
• A desperate attempt to stay relevant.
• A desperate attempt to get page views on an article.
• Any combination of the above.

Let's be serious. There are many bloggers out there who have been in aggregators before. And to say it is 'uncensored' simply describes most of the reblogging web that actually requires less work. Any idiot can turn a website into a centralized aggregator- in fact, many do.

So what is the point? Second Life has many blogs out there; just take a look at the sidebar on Your2ndPlace.com - it's so long that I may have to rethink how I handle it, yet it is incomplete. I try to add people as fast as I find them, but... its like trying to drain a river with a tin cup. And what are the benefits for the participants in CNN's 'new and improved' stuff? A little exposure? They already had that through Google, Technorati and fellow bloggers - not to mention word of mouth.

Behold, the wheel reinvented and rebranded as CNN. Wow. Applause. Congratulations, you smart people... finding ways to stay relevant and cash in on the creativity and work of others. Brilliant. Artificially magnifying perspectives, creating celebrity reminiscent of the Back Street Boys. Just what we needed...

Don't worry. There are more subversives than CNNites. I watch the BBC anyway, and consider Reuters in Second Life to be the only valid big media outlet inworld so far.

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