A citizen journalism experiment loses a leader

Dan Gilmore, ex-San Jose Mercury News reporter and founder of Bayosphere.com, notes in a letter from a couple days ago that he and Bayosphere will no longer be spending VC money on Bayosphere. Instead, Gilmore is founding a new non-profit called the Center for Citizen Media in conjunction with the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

I noted the other day that there are no fewer than 16 different news sites offering reader input and voting on content, and of these few have any marketing strategy. Combine that with the fact that as Scott Karp points out few ordinary people have time for creating, editing, and voting for content, and it's clear that Bayosphere had an uphill battle to reach any type of critical mass. But more importantly, I believe Bayosphere's focus on citizens controlling all content prevented it from having a strong point of view and brand through editing, which I view as one of two requirements for success in online journalism today. Sadly, given all the other Web 2.0 citizen participation sites out there, we don't think Bayosphere will be the last to fade off into the sunset.

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