San Francisco Bay. Photograph: Ben Margot/AP
Grassroots journalism guru Dan Gillmor has unveiled his long-awaited new project, Bayosphere. He describes its mission like this:
We will reflect - and reflect on - the news, needs and ideas of the San Francisco Bay Area and especially the technology sphere that is the prime economic driver of the area.
It's taken Gillmor a while to get this project off the ground since he left the San Jose Mercury News in February. At the moment, though, there's very little there aside from a new home for Gillmor's blog.
Such citizen journalism projects are spreading like a rash in the US at the moment: inevitably, some will thrive in the manner of South Korea's Oh My News, and some will fall: at the moment it's hard to know which. Although Gillmor's unimpeachable reputation for being as a guru of citizen participation in journalism will garner plenty of attention, I can't help thinking it's a bit unfortunate that the Bayosphere site has been unveiled in a such a skeleton state, without the bells and whistles that would really show visitors how the community is going to work.
Check out Cyberjournalist.net's Citizen Media Monitor for a list. Such projects haven't caught on in the UK in the same way yet - as far as I know.
