Dan Gillmor’s First Grassroots Media Project:: Bayosphere.com

Former San Jose Mercury News columnist Dan Gillmor has been as good at keeping quiet about his own plans as an entrepreneur as he was at breaking news about others. (He didn’t want to be interviewed when I asked him about Bayosphere.com, the site he registered a few weeks ago.) Today, Gillmor, determined not to inflate expectations, took a small step toward going public with more than comments about grassroots journalism. It’s called Bayosphere, with the tagline “of, by and for the BayArea.” The site is the new home of his blog, but soon will host a community designed to exploit, in the best sense of the word, the internet as “a medium through which we could connect and collaborate, for mutual benefit.”
Gillmor himself will return to reporting and commenting on Silicon Valley, in addition to keeping his current focus on grassroots media. (He doesn’t say this but it’s hard not to see the blog framed this way as direct competition for SiliconValley.com and the Mercury News, his former homes.) But this isn’t meant to be all Dan Gillmor all the time; his blog is just the first of what he plans to be many voices. Gillmor describes himself as a host, not the site’s editor.
He talks about a team with no specifics. No mention of business models either or pesky things like advertising. Like I said, a small step — but one worth watching.

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