more on the power of the commons

Sometimes I hit "publish" too quickly, before a thought has completely matured--that's certainly the case with the previous post. Because yeah, the Library of Congress photos are cool and all, but what's it got to do with journalism?

Ultimately, everything. It's a grand idea, harnessing users to do the heavy lifting on a project: it saves both money and time, expensive commodities in an ever-shrinking newsroom. But how do you apply it to news? Here's one idea, lifted directly from the new LOC/Flickr partnership:

Harness your readers to tag your stories. Throw the entire paper open for user tagging. Why? Because it will ultimately create an entirely new way to access your content. Allow tagged links to build a new information web, where opinion stories are linked with features across sections and cover dates; where unexpected connections are made through unpredictable links. It's too much work to dedicate staff, but if any reader could add their own tag terms it not only allows them to invest themselves in your content, but to utilize it more completely. Additionally, it builds a database with which to sell content-specific advertising against; one that's able to grow organically but doesn't require the processing power of a Google server cloud.

That's how the power of the commons can help to save journalism.

the power of the commons

G. Washington's teeth (LOC), originally uploaded by The Library of Congress.

The Library of Congress today announced a partnership with photo-sharing site Flickr to upload digital reproductions of thousands of photographs in the LOC's archives. The purpose goes further than PR (though it's great PR--all photos are freely available with no copyright restrictions, a public asset that will quickly be put to creative use at a massive scale), but instead to allow anyone to help to catalog the massive photo library using common-language tags.

It's a brilliant idea--harnessing the power of the crowd to help bring order to an undertaking that would normally take decades. Additionally, it helps to democratize a usually cloistered task, that of ordering information.

But more than that, it exhibits a trust in the commons--that shared place where people of all stripes have a stake and a claim--that the corporate media has yet to embrace. What a refreshing thing, to see a usually lumbering industry decide to step up and lead. Who will be the first to follow?