NeighborsGo: Apples and Oranges
November 18, 2009
NeighborsGo.com is not a horrible disgrace of a website. I think it is ideas like these that may not necessarily be the future of journalism, but are definitely stepping stones in shaping what journalism will eventually become. I commend Greg for taking a chance on something that is new and exciting. I don’t think that Greg was fully expecting the journalistic grilling our Online Journalism class put him through today, but I don’t think he should let it bother him. Sites like NeighborsGo.
com are experiments in this new age of news through social networking. Society has to determine the difference between sites like NeighborsGo and actual Journalism. NeighborsGo.com is a community website. Newspapers are definitely going by the wayside and sites like this are the natural successors. If we look at NeighborsGo as a representation of the communities that it supports instead of an unbiased news conglomerate like USA Today or CNN, everything will be fine. We have to let apples be apples and oranges be oranges. We can’t criticize the apple for not being perfectly round, because it is not meant to be. It’s an APPLE! Leave the apple alone.
Good point. Neighborgo is clearly an experiment, and quite honestly, more media companies need to try new approaches to figure out what’s going to become a viable business model for the future.