Jon Newman’s post about the sea change in Richmond Media got me thinking about The RichmondWiki Project’s role in the local media scene. Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for a long time but this is the first time the thoughts have coalesced into print…or pixels for that matter.
First and foremost, a wiki is not a blog and it’s not a news site. It’s not a social network. And it’s definitely not an efficient P2P communication channel. So all of you community bloggers, news media, social marketers, satirists, and checkout girls, just keep doing what you do knowing that the wiki is not out to steal your audience (in fact, we can help you grow it).
The RichmondWiki Vision
My vision of a successful, sustainable, usable local wiki is that of an aggregator – a starting point for people searching for local information. Kind of like Google, a local wiki can serve as a clearinghouse for public information and lead people the information they seek. Bonus points if it’s on another site.
You’ll notice that many of the 10 most popular articles are simply lists or categories (data are from 8.17.08 – 6.8.09):
10 Most Viewed Articles (Click to Expand)
So What’s Different?
The wiki is intended to be to be a “freely-editable community resource.” Free, meaning no fees. No profit motive. (Note: There are a few ads in the project blog to help cover hosting and domain name costs, but the wiki is free to read, edit, and contribute to.)
We make publish high-level site analytics data in monthly reports on the blog and by any of the Google Analytics data are available by request. It’s a community project and sharing is cool, especially for analytics geeks like me.
It’s even cool if marketing people want to add their stuff if it’s done appropriately.
A wiki is unbiased. A community of editors insures that the content remains factual, sourced, and current. I hate to use the term “encyclopedia”, but it’s probably the closest comparison…but not in a cliquish Wikipedia way. It’s not a place for opinion, but we’re more than happy to link to outside sources with different viewpoints.
Kindred Spirits
There are a lot of cool things happening in Richmond that are closely tied to the “community resource” genre.
RichmondGoodLife.com does some great stuff in the local content aggregation arena as well, but there are a few key differences. I’m sure we have a lot to learn from each other.
RVATweets.com and RVABlogs.com rule when it comes to tracking the local social media scene in a very organic, open way.
Many of the community and neighborhood blogs provide a valuable, needed service to their readers.
I, for one, appreciate the direction that the “new” Richmond media is taking.
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