My experience with Pajamas Media…
by Jack Grant…was not quite as positive as this CNet News.com story appears to imply:
Bloggers unite for aggregation site
By Elinor Mills
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: October 17, 2005, 12:41 PM PDTA group of bloggers including mainstream journalists from outlets such as CNBC, The Nation and The New York Times are banding together to strike a blow at established media and pick up some ad dollars in the process.
Operating initially as Pajamas Media–a play on criticism that bloggers are “just a bunch of guys in their pajamas”–the site will offer original content and links to affiliate sites written by more than 70 bloggers, as well as basic news feeds from sources like The Associated Press, said novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon, one of the founders.
I still have the email around here somewhere congratulating me on being the 300th blogger to sign up.
Now, they’ve winnowed themselves down to 70 or so, and I only received two emails after that initial “congratulations” indicating their changes in business model and overall plans.
Lest I sound bitter, I truly am not. When I first read of their plans, I had significant doubts about the business model they described, and I was not reassured in the first email I received that included the confidentiality agreement and a detailed outline of the business plan.
I duly signed the non-disclosure agreement (I have so many of those in my files that I’ve lost track of them; however, it is easy for me to recall what I cannot disclose, but I can’t tell you about them or why it is easy to recall…), and I sent in a scanned copy of the signed document.
Months pass with no word from the supposed pajama-clad insurgent new media leadership.
Finally after the extended silence, an email explaining how “Pajamas Media” was being split into two, with a rather inadequate justification to explain why the vast majority of bloggers who were at least implicitly promised a ground-floor seat into a “new world of news and media” were being left out in the cold.
I have yet to receive any messages from the secondary part of Pajamas Media (I cannot even recall the name attached to this enterprise) regarding their plans for the unwanted red-headed stepchildren.
Yes, I am a small-fry in blogworld, but I do have some level of pride, both in my work and in my worth even if simply as a human being.
I do not blame those starting up Pajamas Media for rethinking their model (if I found their plan inadequate, and I’m a damn Physicist, what would someone who runs a business for a living have thought???), but a wee bit more communication regarding the evolution of the plans, given we all signed a non-disclosure agreement, would not have been out of line and would have at least shown us small-fry why we were not valuable, but in keeping us “in the know” made us feel valued.
Instead, we were ignored. Not a way to win friends and influence people, Dale Carnegie would be aghast.
I wish Pajamas Media well, but I have little faith that they will turn out to be anything more than just another elite publishing their own bloviations.
Sorry folks, move along, nothing new to see here.
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[...] Jack Grant from RandomFate has an interesting view. …was not quite the one being publicized upon the launch of the new, “subversive” service ostensibly “striking a blow” against the “established media”. [...]
By Todays Democracy : News, Feature Stories, Entertainment, Business, Science & Technology on 10.18.05 01:32
[...] You can read “My experience with Pajamas Media…” and draw your own conclusions. [...]
By Random Fate on 10.21.05 18:06
[...] So, how’s Pajamas Media - the nascent New Media weblogging juggernaut - going? Well, there are the inevitable rumblings of “elitism” from the hoi-polloi, but that is to be expected. There is also apparently some discontent among the 200+ bloggers who were originally included, but were then unceremoniously dumped - but one can’t make an omelet and all that. But there are, perhaps, some deeper problems as well. Let’s ask Dennis the Peasant, one of the original 4 partners: As those brave few who read this blog closely already know, I’ve made reference more than once to the fact that I was, at one time, 25% of what is now Pajamas Media. In fact, I was a part of that business before Charles Johnson was. The brave few will also note that I’ve made reference more than once to the fact that I’m not a part of Pajamas Media because Roger L. Simon (and his poodle, Charles J.) decided it to be worth their while to cut myself and another Central Ohio businessman out of the company and dole out our percentages to folks they deemed more likely to aid in the noble cause of lining their own pockets. [...]
By The Poor Man Institute » There is so much fucking love in my heart on 10.21.05 23:58
Count yourself lucky you aren’t going to be associated with the racist writing of a frustrated Californian ex-hippie.
By LGFWatch on 11.02.05 11:21
[...] This does sound pretty bad, except when you consider that PJs, a company with no product, no business model, and - oh yeah - no name, has already managed to dump 230 of its initial 300 “employees” without explanation. Tony Pierce comments: proving to all of us who are paying attention, that Pajama Media will accept you if you defend American Terrorism, torture, perjury, outting of CIA agents, deficit spending, lies, traitors, and foul play… but titties on dvds is over the line. [...]
By The Poor Man Institute » Bunched PJs on 11.13.05 22:24
[...] Pajamas Media, the folks who signed up some 300-plus bloggers for a “subversive new media” and then uncerimoniously dropped the 270-plus small-fry, publicly announced they had renamed themselves to Open Souce Media last night. [...]
By Random Fate on 11.17.05 05:50
Well put. I wish them well and hope everyone can be happy in a bloggy kind of way. But as a fellow small fry, I feel the same way you do.
One of the original conceptions that was thrown out the window was aggregation of “the long tail;” and don’t forget they invited bloggers of all sizes to sign the NDA.
But OSM is inscrutable even on the basis of simple traffic. I read that The Moderate Voice wasn’t invited to join, even though he’d been in contact with them. TMV has terrific traffic and substantially higher than some of the blogs OSM has signed up (based on open sitemeters I checked).
So I have no idea.
By Christopher Fotos on 11.17.05 23:11
[...] The problem is that they are entering step 2 of the business plan, after collecting the underpants (and discarding the ones that didn’t make the cut), and they still haven’t found the person who knows what step 2 actually is. [...]
By Random Fate on 11.18.05 00:40
A bit of backstory on Pajamas Media/OSM
Dennis the Peasant tells his side of the story with respect to Pajamas Media. While it should be read keeping the source in mind, much of what h…
By The Moderate Voice on 11.20.05 16:49
[...] Dennis the Peasant tells his side of the story with respect to Pajamas Media. While it should be read keeping the source in mind, much of what he describes is very consistent with events after he stopped working with those involved in creating OSM, including the erratic communication and changing business plan. [...]
By Random Fate » Backstory time for Pajamas Media/OSM on 11.20.05 16:50
yep that sounds like my experience. Except somewhere along the way I got a 3rd piece or one of the first two asked me to confirm I was still interested. Something like that. Then I got an email saying that my invite to the big party in NY would be coming soon. Which I never got. But when it started up, my blog was in the roll…. I’m still waiting on, you know, some idea of what it obligates and entitles me to, to be a part of the former Pajamas Media. And I’m not really going to worry or blog about it much more. I hope they right the ship, but time will tell.
By ubu roi on 11.22.05 05:50
From Pajamas Media to OSM and back again
Since we have posted on the OSM/Pajamas Media story, including name change, here at The Moderate Voice before, we now note that the name is being
By The Moderate Voice on 11.22.05 18:06
PajamaGate: OSM vs MSM — Will The Blogosphere Go Corporate?
We’ve always wanted to use “gate” in something.
This morning, Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds cheerfully reports: GET IT RIGHT THE SECOND TIME: OSM is going back to “Pajamas Media.”
“About time: I liked …
By California Conservative on 11.23.05 03:27
G’night
Well, working on books means less obsessive late night blogging, I fear. So, I leave you with a few links:
By Pererro on 11.24.05 04:59