Pajamas Media
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Pajamas Media, briefly known as Open Source Media, is a startup company founded in 2004 by mystery writer and Huffington Post blogger Roger L. Simon and Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs "with the intention of... aggregating blogs to increase corporate advertising and creating our own professional news service." [1]
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[edit] History
Pajamas Media completed its first round of venture capital funding on November 14, 2005; its launch and official rebranding as "Open Source Media" took place November 16. Launch festivities included a keynote address by former New York Times journalist Judith Miller.
Pajamas Media Board members include many prominent bloggers and journalists, including "Instapundit" Glenn Reynolds, CNBC's Larry Kudlow, Michael Barone of U.S. News & World Report, David Corn of The Nation and Claudia Rosett (who helped break the United Nations' "Oil for Food" controversy).
[edit] Missteps
Seminal blogger Luke Ford had been signed up as a PJM/OSM pundit but was dropped the next day when it was discovered that he had resumed blogging the adult film industry. [2]
When the Open Source brand was launched, it claimed that the Open Source radio program had allowed it to use its name and an Internet subdomain, opensourcemedia.net, that wasn't in use at the time. Christopher Lydon, founder of the Open Source, said that wasn't true despite revised text on OSM's site. Further investigation revealed that the production company, Open Source Media, Inc., had in fact already applied for a trademark on the name. To avoid further conflict, OSM returned to the name Pajamas Media, on November 22, 2005.
[edit] Logos
Some critics noted that the OSM logo was similar to that of Lucent Technologies and that used by The Philadelphia Inquirer for philly.com, its Web portal[3].
The Pajamas Media logo was also criticized [4] for depicting what appears to be a bathrobe or dressing gown, rather than actual pajamas. It has also been criticized for lacking visual power and interest.
[edit] Criticism
Starting in October 2004, Kenton E. Kelly, who blogs as Dennis the Peasant, entered into discussions with Roger Simon to begin a venture called Tulip Advertising, an arrangement terminated by Kelly upon learning that Simon had launched Pajamas Media on April 29, 2005. Since then, Kelly, a Certified Public Accountant in Columbus, Ohio has been highly critical of Pajamas' business plan [5] or what he feels is the lack thereof. He claims that Simon and Johnson have not even begun to consider how they will attract advertising to the site and that they seem to think they won't need to, based on his observation of a lack of strategy, missed deadlines, and "general sloppiness." [6] He also questioned whether OSM would attract real readership when the readers of many of the blogs to be aggregated could already read their favorite bloggers at their own sites for free. Roger Simon later responded on his own blog, noting that there was never much of a partnership between Kelly and himself, stating "no contracts were ever signed. No investment[s]...made. Nothing happened."
Another blogger, Jeff Jarvis, himself a principal in another blogging startup, questioned the demand for advertising on the sites of "mostly conservative political bloggers." [7]
When law blogger Ann Althouse also aired a public critique of the OSM business model, Johnson responded by directing his commenters to her post, provoking a flame war which lasted the better part of a week.[8]
A columnist who supports Ron Paul has criticized Pajamas Media for dropping Paul from the site's presidential straw polls and declaring him unelectable, despite his receiving more than 40% of the vote in the 19 February 2007 poll.[9] When Paul was reinstated for the 2 April 2007 poll, he received 29% of the vote, but Pajamas Media noted that:[10]
- The paleo-libertarian seems to be a purely Internet Phenomenon. He has yet to score significantly on any national poll, his best being a mere 3% on Zogby. Of course this could change. Pajamas Media would like to note, however, that the vast majority of his votes in our poll (1331 of 1725) were placed right here on the portal site, suggesting a determined effort by his supporters to “bomb” this poll.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] Official sites
[edit] Old media coverage
- Christian Science Monitor : A one-stop shop for the 'best' blogs
- CNET : Open Source Media group met with harsh criticism
- The NY Sun : Three Political Web Logs Make a Run for the Mainstream
- PR Newswire : Pajamas Media Closes $3.5 Million Venture Round
- Tech Central Station : The Rise of Pajamas Media
- Wired : Will Pajamas Media Wake Up Blogs?
[edit] New media coverage
- La Shawn Barber : Pajamas Media Launch
- Business Logs : Open Source Media Launches To Negative Press
- Buzzmachine : I don’t wear PJs
- Crooked Timber : Pajamarama
- Outside the Beltway : Open Source (Pajamas) Media: An Early Assessment
- Jim Lowney : Party Like It's 1999 — account of the launch afterparty.
- Protein Wisdom : Liveblogging the Pajamas Media launch festivities from the W Hotel in New York, 4
- Rightwing News : The Debut Of Open Source Media AKA Pajamas Media
- Stop the ACLU : Open Source Confusion?
