AO / Technorati Open Media 100 Nominations

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Open source has revolutionized software, and now it’s doing the same for media. We are realizing the first, truly democratic, new world of Open Media, where every online user can create, share, and participate in media of all forms. And it’s just the beginning.

We used to think of “collaboration” in terms of bringing together the people we know, those pre-qualified to fit the task, to sit around a table and hash out, refine and execute ideas. The Internet has become the platform that enables learning and sharing amongst millions of people, escalating collaboration—and ultimately progress—to exponential levels.

AlwaysOn and Technorati call this phenomenon the Open Media Revolution. With the AO/Technorati Open Media 100 list, we are honoring those individuals who are driving the proliferation of Open Media and leveraging the power of community, not an individual or a corporation. The purpose of the list is to provide a framework of this emerging industry. It will include the key players who are proving the impact of Open Media and building the infrastructures to facilitate it.

We’d like to hear from you. Who are your nominations for key players driving the Open Media Revolution? Comment on this post and list your nominations, up to 5 per category. You can also tag your own blog posts with Technorati tag: . We’ll be closing our call for nominations on May 16, 2005 and we’ll be watching.

The final AlwaysOn/Technorati Open Media 100 will be published in the June issue of the AlwaysOn Blogozine, and of course I’ll blog it here.

Here are the categories for nominations:

The Pioneers: industry luminaries who created the vision of open media and continue to shape it.

The Tool Smiths: web service entrepreneurs and companies building the open media tools (blogs, social software, wikis, RSS, analytic tools, etc.).

The Trendsetters: the influencers driving and evangelizing the adoption and applications of Open Media.

The Practitioners: the top bloggers in politics, business, technology, and media.

The Enablers: the venture capitalists and investors backing the Open Media Revolution.

The Open Media industry is rapidly emerging and changing. We’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s out there. This is our collective attempt at creating the framework and defining the key players driving Open Media at this point in time. The list will evolve and change just as quickly as the industry. We expect the 2006 Open Media 100 to look very different!

UPDATE: Sorry about the insensitivity, and good comments from all of you, I am asking the folks at AO to change the category name from “The Founding Fathers” to “The Founding Fathers and Mothers”. Sorry about that!

SECOND UPDATE: Thanks to Ross Mayfield, I think that “The Pioneers” is a better category name. I’m changing it again. Thanks again for the criticism and feedback.

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This article has 24 comments

  1. Roland Tanglao's Weblog 05/06/2005, 11:56 pm:

    Vote for me :-) and I’ll set you free – AO / Technorati Open Media 100 Nominations

    Nominate me today :-) ! I figure what we (Richard, Boris, Kris and myself) are doing with blogging and citizen journalism at VanEats, Urban Vancouver, 2010, Battlestar Aggregatica, Photography Hack, and podcasting at Dogma Radio etc. qualifies under “T…

  2. Wer sind die Lichtgestalten, Muetter, Vaeter und Macher der Open Media Revolution?

    Die Nominierung zur AO-Technorati Open Media 100 List ist er

  3. Wer sind die Lichtgestalten, Muetter, Vaeter und Macher der Open Media Revolution?

    Die Nominierung zur AO-Technorati Open Media 100 List ist er

  4. Liz Lawley 05/07/2005, 12:06 pm:

    The “founding fathers”?
    If it wasn’t so depressing, it would be funny.

  5. The One True b!X 05/07/2005, 12:44 pm:

    Just by way of seeking clarification, how does “With the AO/Technorati Open Media 100 list, we are honoring those individuals who are driving the proliferation of Open Media and leveraging the power of community, not an individual or a corporation.” fit together with “The Practitioners: the top bloggers in politics, business, technology, and media.” given that the latter inherently is about individuals, not the power of community?

  6. keso 05/07/2005, 1:03 pm:

    昨日新闻 – 别人为什么写blog——兼谈两类博客写作的成本收益

    Ping Back来自:www.donews.net

  7. jeneane 05/07/2005, 6:09 pm:

    The more things stay the same.

  8. liza sabater 05/07/2005, 6:10 pm:

    DUDE!
    Founding fathers?
    Do I need to send 100 angry blog sheroes your way? Does Kevin Drumm ring a bell? Or is this kind of “there is no such thing as bad PR” stunt?

  9. dave rogers 05/07/2005, 6:49 pm:

    First, what is the basis for believing that AlwaysOn and Technorati are entities that are worthy of bestowing “honor” on anything or anyone?
    Second, what indicates a need for “a framework of this emerging industry?” What is the framework for? Who will use the framework and to what end?
    Third, isn’t the purpose of this list really to draw attention to Technorati and AlwaysOn? Don’t those two entities have a need for attention that is greater than any “need” for a “framework of this emerging industry?”
    Finally, where’s all the transparency here? After all the nominations are submitted, who will decide? Are they really nominations, or votes? What is the process for final enumeration of the list?

  10. 零度高烧.闪 05/07/2005, 7:24 pm:

    别人为什么写blog——兼谈两类博客写作的成本收益 #

    Ping Back来自:www.donews.net

  11. David Sifry 05/07/2005, 7:41 pm:

    You guys are right, I have asked the AO folks to change the name of the category from “The Founding Pathers” to “The Pioneers”. Many thanks to Ross Mayfield for the suggested category name, and to Marc, Liz, and Susan especially for the criticism.
    I apologize.
    Dave

  12. jeneane 05/08/2005, 7:20 am:

    Thank you Dave. A simple, direct way to handle this.

  13. Don Park 05/08/2005, 8:00 am:

    Could we add the Troublemakers category?
    And do Trotts count as one or two?

  14. Shelley 05/08/2005, 10:27 am:

    The real, but addressed issue (and my wasn’t that a Freudian slip) of Founding Fathers aside, and Dave Rogers’ questions being very relevant, why don’t we just rename the same old lists these new categories, because these are guaranteed to bring the same faces and voices, as other ’100′ lists of this nature have in the past.
    Can’t we just fill in who will be in these lists? Can we leave aside the pretense that it is going to generate anything fresh and exciting? Or introduce new people or thoughts or ideas?
    This is one of the most disappointing things I have read in months.

  15. Richard MacManus 05/08/2005, 2:02 pm:

    Echoing Shelley’s concerns, I think there should at least be a category for non-A-Listers. May I suggest something like:
    The Up-and-Comers
    or, The New Voices
    or something along those lines…

  16. George Coates 05/08/2005, 3:34 pm:

    Yes. Moving from the, “Founding Father’s” to the, “Pioneers” is a start but keep digging. To make your language more congruent with open source values, words like the “top” bloggers in politics… can be replaced with language that better reflects how bottom up or flat cultures actually work: Replace the word “top”
    with the word “influential” and you’ll get a little closer to becoming what you profess to be about.
    Open source awards ceremonies that mirror
    proprietary awards ceremonies are unconcious award ceremonies.
    The open source movement empowers the citizenry to reject proprietary top down culture by making it possible for communities to supply their own demand by bridging unnecesary supply line boundaries.
    You can help point this out by honoring online communities working together across disipline boundaries that challenge outdated proprietary oligarchies and the entrenched ranking systems that sustain them.
    Please consider replacing a couple words in your description of “the Practitioners” so it reads:
    The Practitioners: influential communities
    of bloggers in politics, business,
    technology, media and the arts.
    A “Top” blogger may not be an influential blogger
    and an influential blog may not rank very high
    in the technorati 100.
    Question: How does an open source awards ceremony demonstrate it’s credibility if it doesn’t know how to suss out influential, little known bloggers or communities of bloggers who none-the-less demonstrate a potent challenge to an existing proprietary order.

  17. BillSaysThis 05/08/2005, 4:03 pm:

    Wow, who died and made you guys the grand poobas? Okay, possibly that’s a little harsh but the underlying question seems valid: Why are Technorati and AlwaysOn the right place to have this poll, why these categories, why now, and what are the rules? Neither your post or the almost identically worded one on AO to which you link give answers to any of these questions?
    The fact that you’ve announced this without laying out any ground rules is especially puzzling. Not the standard legalese but just the basics: How are people or groups nominated? What’s the process for moving from nominees to winners/selections? How are you going to validate these processes to avoid ballot stuffing and similar issues? What if someone starts a Babba Boey stunt, how will you handle it?
    You and Tony really surprised me and a lot of other people with this project, not in a good way for the most part I’ll wager. Credit for the nerviness but since the poll is about ‘open media’ don’t you think a more open, community-centered approach to developing this ‘framework’ (whatever you mean by that) should be used as the starting point?

  18. Pat 05/08/2005, 9:47 pm:

    A site I saw today, http://www.thosebastards.com/, covers the site in more detail, but there are some serious issues in all of this.
    Quite frankly, I don’t want any group coming out and saying “hey, we’re the pioneers” or “we’re the founding fathers”, especially in an incestious organization that has become the blogosphere (see Technorati 100). Imagine — 9 million voices boiled down to 100 authorities or so.
    (Or, since I’ve been running my blog since 1999, I didn’t seem to the email…)
    One of the beauties (and curses) of the internet is that we all get to determine our own credibility of the poster. Granted, there are rankings and recommended readings and blog rolls, we to a certain extent we choose where to go.
    Granted, Top 100 lists help the media and evetually help certain people to some money and fame but in effect hurt the whole community because of the limited number of people that are heard. Otherwise known as business as usual.
    Tread carefully — don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

  19. dave pell 05/09/2005, 1:11 pm:

    Let’s be sure to include those who are designing for the open media revolution such as:
    37 Signals
    and
    Adaptive Path
    Zeldman and a few other design sites also qualify.

  20. mobile jones 05/10/2005, 2:07 am:

    What is abundantly clear from the comments above is that this advertising effort by Technorati and AlwaysOn isn’t very well thought out.
    The Webby Awards have named a Best Blog: BoingBoing. Those guys and girl do a great job.
    Let me echo some others reactions. Do we really need another way or platform to promote already popular blogs and bloggers? This is an old media approach to a new medium.
    If you want to contribute something to the blogosphere, develop software that solves a problem. The problem that exists in the blogosphere is overcoming the existing Top Ten Lists. The talented staff at Technorati could solve that problem if they tried, no?

  21. The Liberal Avenger 05/10/2005, 4:30 pm:

    Practitioners – Politics:
    Stirling Newberry, http://www.bopnews.com
    Matt Stoller, http://www.bopnews.com

  22. Josh Petersen 05/12/2005, 6:00 pm:

    How about changing tool makers to just tools?

  23. NPC 05/17/2005, 12:08 pm:

    Gerard Joling

    AO / Technorati Open M…

  24. Those Bastards! 05/19/2005, 2:26 am:

    Technorati, Open Media and following the money

    I’ll comment on this, because it’s fun. I used to work as a journalist. It was a short period of time, when I figured out that unless you are dishing out entertainment masked as journalism (see Larry King, see Sam Donaldson), most journalists don’t mak…

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