Nowpublic Out-PJs the PJs

Have any of you heard of Nowpublic? I hadn't. Until Drudge linked to it this morning.

Let's see. "Citizen journalism." Where have I heard of that before? Uncle Aubrey, toss me a bone.

Wow...Pajamas Media has what? Less than a hundred bloggers? Nowpublic claims 120 THOUSAND. Evidently they have a real functioning network of bloggers, unlike the PJs, and they send them out to cover stories instead of linking to ancient news via Barcelona's "bureau," i.e. some member blogger's bedroom PC table.

Check this out:

"The Vancouver-based start-up says it is growing at a rate of 35 percent monthly and has nearly 120,000 contributing "reporters" in more than 140 countries."

Oh, dear. So these companies are supposed to get BIGGER, not disintegrate as the contributors get pissed off and quit. I can see how that would make more sense. Uncle Aubrey, take note.

I guess what this means is, Pajamas Media is about as relevant as the Amiga. Imagine my shock and dismay.

Oh my God. Nowpublic is charging news organizations for stories! Obvious, right? Well, not to everyone, I guess. Why hasn't Roger Simon thought of this? Everyone wants to know what's happening in Barcelona, right?

The story says Nowpublic is among Time's top 50 websites for 2007, unlike PJM. In fairness, that could partly be because Time hates conservatives. And partly because the people at Time are idiots who know nothing about the web. They picked a number of sites no one has ever heard of. And I don't see Blogtalkradio in there. I think it's a fairly big deal; I would have included it.

The story says Nowpublic has landed ten million plus in venture capital. Ouch, PJM. Maybe it's time for Uncle Aubrey to raise someone's allowance. The unreliable gossip I heard about PJM was that they blew their initial multimillion-dollar wad and then fired their PR chief because, like everyone else in the world, they could not figure out what he had spent the money on. Now watch them tell me I'm wrong but refuse to say what actually happened.

I'm looking at the Nowpublic site. Pretty cheesy. Like Youtube with text. But then Youtube is a giant success.

No matter how you slice it, this looks like bad news for Raj and Rerun and Instashrum. For one thing, Nowpublic is huge and getting about a ten million percent better bang for the venture buck, and for another, people outside of the tiny world of blogging know what Nowpublic is, whereas Pajamas Media is still obscure after two years.

I'm surprised that Drudge would link to the Nowpublic story, because Drudge factotum Andrew Breitbart--who hosted the story on his site--is a big Pajamas Media cheerleader. I guess news is news and you have to link to it, even if you don't get invited to any more of Roger Simon's pajama parties.

Anyhow, there is a right way to do things, and then there is the Pajama way. I think that's the message here.

Related news: Blogtalkradio is going to be hosting PJM shows in the future. Not just Atlas Juggs, but others. So get ready for a tidal wave of sweet, sweet candy for your ears.

Also, I have heard about Christopher Walken cooking a chicken on video. I'm afraid I'm just not interested, but thanks for notifying me. Let me know when he makes a chicken talk and then has Mr. Shush give it buckwheats.