An end to self-contained news?

I was inspired by Felix Salmon's recent comparison of blog writing to traditional journalism to consider whether the shift is aiding or hindering our ability to stay informed about the news.
From Salmon's blog:

Traditional media outlets, by contrast [to blogs], generally have an incomprehensible love affair with Microsoft Word... It’s generally more difficult to insert links, especially when I’m dealing with people who edit for print first and who then just put that edited copy up online. The pieces have to be much more self-contained, and you have to be much more careful about assuming any kind of expertise on the part of your readers: if they’re reading your stuff on paper, then it’s much harder for them to Google anything they don’t understand.

Increasingly we're seeing the major news outlets embrace the blogger approach to the news, using social media tools to harness. The most recent example is today's New York Times decision to structure its pay wall so that shared links on Facebook and Twitter will still be accessible. One of my favorite mainstream uses of social media is the BBC World Service which uses its Have your Say forum as a way to get first-person accounts of global events and varying political and religious opinions which it then sites and uses in its news, radio and television coverage. It's a modern extension of a news tip hotline but due to the global nature of its audience has an amazing reach that spans its 24-hour news cycle. A third example of just how ubiquitous social media and blogs have become to news reporting is the launch of Google Realtime and the search engine's use of blog posts and Twitter feeds next to larger media sources.

Do we give anything up by using a mass of often anonymous or unveiled sources to get the latest information? Though I have heard several arguments against crowd-sourcing its benefits outweigh any concerns of misinformation or libel. Namely this is because in addition to the ability of accessing ongoing updates to any issue from all over the globe, the depth of any story or issue that becomes available is phenomenal. As Salmon points out on the web one can instantly search for more information or explore related links.

Today's social media world is a bit like Orwell's Animal Farm, all sources are equal but some are more equal than others. Big publishing names, trusted bloggers and the recommended links from your friends are the the winning sources.

So what's next for social news reporting? So if news sites are now custom serving content, using anonymous web sources and choosing their headliners based on what's most popular - where do we go from here in terms of crowd-sourcing? More importantly, when it comes to information is it ok to give the people only what they want? There's arguably a 10:1 ratio of Charlie Sheen articles to those on sustainable agriculture. How do we maintain the balance between interesting information and useful information? In the future will every story come with a litany of opinion, reaction, re-reaction and YouTube parodies?

What has promise to succeed?

This week The Wall Street Journal ranked what it thought were the top US venture-backed companies with promise to succeed.

Some of the trends in what they chose are a bit telling about where our future is headed. Half of the companies were related to media, web or communications technology. Meanwhile 20% of the companies were healthcare related either bio-tech or healthcare management.

Most telling, was that 32% of the companies dealt with issues of data protection, data processing and security. As every individual has access to the internet and the ability to create and publish content of their own (damn those pesky bloggers!) the data generated is overwhelming. Interestingly when you combine the need for organized, actionable data with trends of personalizations and communication you get something like Yammer - one of my favorite companies on the list. Yammer is a new tool that creates a corporate or organizational social network aimed at allowing people to connect and transfer information quickly and securely. In office environments where more people are on the go, working from home or collaborating with people in other offices all over the world--- it's important to get the productive communication flow right.

There were some glaring category omissions from the list, namely companies aimed at improving education and the environment. These are two categories that could use new ideas and innovation and the support of venture funds and the Washington Post. I did not note any companies on the list that were aimed at improving education. There were three that improve the environment. The last, again a personal favorite, is a bit of stretch in terms of how environmentally friendly it is. Etsy is an online vintage and homemade marketplace. The rationale being that reusing vintage items or valuing handmade goods will eventually reduce our consumption and manufacturing of new goods that require new resources. Like I said, it's stretch!

Which company from the list get your vote? What areas do you think we need more development and investment to improve our future?