OSM Bitchfest!

Lot of comments at Goldstein's, including from Allah and Steven den Beste.

I don't get the animosity towards OSM. The confusion about what it is, what it hopes to be, and how the hell it plans to get there -- I get that. I share that. I'm not sure the OSM guys know for sure either (being writers, I'd imagine if they had a clear idea they would have shared it with us), so a lot of this, I think, is an on-the-fly kind of thing. Like Indiana Jones said in reply to "And then what?": "I don't know, I'm making this up as I go along."

But the actual animosity? I was disappointed when OSM's offer came to me; kinda low. I'd hoped for more. So that's why I'm not going to go exclusively with them; there's just not enough money being offered to justify cutting off other revenue streams.

But there's a difference between disappointment and contempt.

And OSM seems a little thin-skinned about the criticisms, too. Which is something to really guard against, as we've all been giving it to the MSM for doing the same thing for so long. Honestly, a start-up can't come out of the gate feeling it's above criticism. The New York Times can't even get way with that anymore.

My major problem with the bitchiness is that it seems to confirm the MSM's complaints about bloggers -- that we're all childish twits who just like quoting each other and slamming each other for largely personal, ego-driven reasons. An on-line high school. I mean, I'm a childish twits who engages in petty spats to boost my own needy ego, but there's no reason to say that's true of the whole blogosphere.

There's room to criticize and there's room to rebut. But I don't get all the heat about it -- if it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't.

And those who are displeased with the OSM model can always try their own hand at a smaller start-up or at least network of bloggers.

posted by Ace at 01:51 PM

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