Some followup on the kerfuffle about Nielsen closing a conference about “consumer generated media” to blogging: See a very reasonable suggestion from Greg Verdino, whose post started all this. This was what I’d hoped we’d hear from the Nielsen folks, instead of back-up-against-the-wall argument.
But as a CGM Summit attendee, I still believe that there was plenty of non-proprietary content that could be shared by bloggers without adversely impacting BuzzMetrics, its clients or other event participants. And it is possible to balance on-the-record and off — it didn’t have to be all or nothing. . . .
Blogging (like all forms of consumer generated media) truly is a dialogue and while we don’t all need to agree, we are all better off if we discuss. And discuss we did.
Nielsen also needs to understand that this isn’t just another business conference. It’s a conference about us and the wisdom of our crowd; we are the “consumers” who are “generating” that “media.” To act as if you own our wisdom gets us a bit cranky (and so does calling us consumers). This is why many of us resent the mere existence of a WOMMA. If, instead, you continue the conversation, we can be quite generous. But generosity is a two-way street.
