Here’s the dirty secret about reporters: they steal from Wikipedia. Shamelessly, in fact. How do I know? Because I see things I wrote for articles magically paraphrased in all sorts of press – collections of facts that did not exist before I collected them.
Bloggers do for their posts. People do it for their opinions. Investors do it for their trading strategies. Reporters do it for their stories. Wikipedia, for all its inaccuracies, is the jumping off point for things we’d never question trusting. And yet, what company do you know that has ever meaningful contributed to community that has the ability to define them?
When you think about influence, think about where it comes from. In other words, it’s not the trendsetting magazines that are important but the places where they find out about trends. That’s where you go because the rest is just too inefficient.
But remember, that’s a very substantial power. Abuse makes it meaningless.
(Also, if I wasn’t physically unable to fit one more thing in my day, I would jump on this opportunity just for fun)
