Geek turned publisher explains crowdsearch success

 

Image by *bene* via Flickr

I bumped into a nice article about Tim O’Reilly, the man behind the series of  zoo-ish themed books on technology topics.  These are generally familiar to the  die-hard geeks or terminally techno-deficient folks and have been one of favorite sources for comprehensive studies into very discrete aspects of computing.  They are definitely NOT competitors for the “Dummies” crowd…you really want to read, learn and apply your knowledge if you are picking up an O’Reilly publication, as opposed to being spoon-fed.  Okay, so I like their books – I’ll cease my accolades for them.  (for now)

 

Pulling back to the article, I keyed in on several items.  O’Reilly noted that being successful in new media is about serving a community first and making money second.  I know everyone here at Gazette Communications can related to that (although making money is vital to the health of the company).  Steve Buttry, our C3 Coach, lays out a detailed blueprint for community connection.  O’Reilly also notes some interesting observations on Twitter and what I see as his maturation in use of the capability:

“On Twitter, I’m an aggregator and a distribution conduit. I’m trying to built a community.  I cannot cover every topic I’m interested in.  Now I use a text file to write the tweet and then decide later whether I’m going to tweet it.”

I find that interesting because this is a person who has a more than normal amount of experience doing crowdsearch (research by way of collaboration with a loosely defined crowd).  He is mapping his successful tactics in compiling extremely useful technology publications by way of crowdsearch to new tools and new participants in the arena.  I can only take it as an unintended endorsement of the C3 concept for news.