Homocon

Other initial impressions of OSM have also been less than stellar:

1. "It’s designed to sound pretty impressive, but to be honest with you, upon examination it seems like it was written to defuse some of the criticisms I (as well as others) have been making about Pajamas’ lack of advertising... and lack of either a strategy or an infrastructure to acquire advertising to generate revenue. A close reading suggests this is all sizzle and no steak." -- Dennis the Peasant

2. "They've taken a couple of guys on board which is supposed to have "strengthened its advertising and sales team." The previous strength of PJ Media's "advertising and sales team", as far as anyone can tell, was zero. So 0+2 = strengthened." -- Unfair Witness

3. "Pajamas, as I understand it, wanted to be an ad network. I don’t see huge advertiser demand for a bunch of mostly conservative political bloggers. At one time, they wanted to be some sort of syndicate but I said nobody would buy content. It seems they now want to be some sort of blog central thing — antimatter to the Huffingtonpost’s matter, I suppose — but the difference is that most of her people don’t blog while most of these people already do blog so I don’t know why I need to see a collection of them." -- Buzz Machine

4. "But, to be honest, I'm not sure I've completely wrapped my head around the whole Pajamas concept. At first, I thought it was an ad network. Then I thought it was to be a portal for select blogs. But some of the things Roger mentioned made it sound an awful lot like a news organization -- there are going to be "editors" in Sydney, LA and Barcelona for 24-hour "coverage" of stories that bloggers will submit." -- The Adventures of Chester

5. "Bloggers are up in arms at David Corn's decision to join the editorial board of Pajamas Media, a consortium of mostly conservative bloggers with a hazy mission and lousy design." -- AlterNet

While the above seem to be mostly lefty sites with an axe to grind against anything conservative (except Dennis the Peasant), and since OSM appears to be unabashedly conservative (well, except for that pesky David Corn), it would only follow that the liberal knives would be drawn. Nonetheless, not-liberal Dennis the Peasant posted a rather eye-opening rant on his website over his initial involvement in, and then subsequent getting-booted-out-of, OSM, which bears a looky-loo for tabloid style entertainment purposes, if nothing else.

Best quote: "My impression from Day One was that Roger truly believed that the sheer brilliance of our idea would have advertisers knocking at our door sans much effort . . . Beyond that, there’s the matter of simple, basic expertise (if you want to call it that) in business itself. The documents Pajamas Media sent to those wishing to sign up were beyond dreadful. Their business plan, such that it was, would have been laughed at by any venture capitalist or businessman worth his salt. It was amateur hour. And that would be what you’d expect from two guys with absolutely no business experience who ditched two guys with professional training in business who had each started and developed their own (successful) businesses."

Politico differences with some of OSM's critics notwithstanding, I have had (and still have) the same (un)impression of Simon's sparkly, rose-colored vision for OSM: "If you build it, they will come."

Hmph, that may be a great tag-line for a Hollywood film, but it has very little to do with reality. Just take a gander at Huffington Post. And about the documents Pajamas sent out to those who were interested in signing up? Yeah, I got those documents, too. "Beyond dreadful" doesn't even begin to describe them, though it's a start. And when I wrote back and asked for a copy of the business plan so that I could see why in the h*ll they were talking about "millions of dollars" in investment to get what was essentially a group-blog project moving, I received the big Nada in reply.

Never a good sign.

And now I hear that the name "Open Source Media" is already trademarked -- by someone else! . . . (and here's a link to where they notice who's noticing). God, what a trainwreck.

Note to Dennis the Peasant: Why have I never heard of you before? You're so on my blogroll, like, yesterday!

ADDENDUM:
And while I rarely read Ann Althouse (maybe once every couple of months), I find it utterly hilarious that while she's offering valid criticism of the OSM site and model, OSM founder Charles Johnson throws a pissy little snit and his loyal LGF comment-crowd launches into attack mode against Althouse because, well, because Charles Johnson is throwing a pissy little snit.

The most telling thing she says (and the biggest problem I had with the whole Pajamas Media/OSM development): "Everyone who signed on is now stuck with the presentation on that website that we were not able to see when we were asked to sign on to 18-month commitments."

Face it, Simon and Johnson -- the website for OSM is dull dull dull, and now, honestly, everyone who is stuck with it is not going to be happy about it (I know I wouldn't be). But, as Dennis the Peasant said, perhaps OSM really is about just creating a high-traffic site that Simon and Johnson can quickly turn over for some cash in pocket, pay each other hefty little dividends (beyond their hefty little salaries) and then walk away. That might explain the surprising lack of long-term planning, and the averse reaction to criticism from their peers ("Shhh, don't say anything -- you'll kill my cash cow!").

ADDENDUM 2:
Speaking of cash cows -- Open Source radio says $3.5 million dollars in Venture Capital was raised by OSM. It certainly didn't get spent on web design, or the tossed-off logo, or trademark research for their name, or genuine office space. Is anybody asking where the money went and/or is going? How much you wanna bet you don't get an answer.

I also notice that top conservative blog PowerLine is not only not a part of OSM, but also isn't - saying - one - word about the launch of OSM.

Interesting.

ADDENDUM 3:
A commenter on Ann Althouse's site made this pointed, and absolutely spot-on, analysis of Charles Johnson's individual blog "Little Green Footballs":

"Charles doesn't spend nearly enough time interacting with his commenters in a way that keeps the tone on his site non-toxic . . . I am grateful that someone is doing the exhausting work of archiving together every terror story and a number of adjoining themes. It is good to see one place that tries to look at the war on terror in a unified way. Unfortunately, I think that there is some element of Nietsche's line "Stare not into the abyss too long or the abyss will begin staring into you". Unrelentingly paying attention to the evil nihilism of Islamofascism and documenting the seemingly willful lack of interest in confronting it by western civilization - as well as a side dish of tracking anti-semitism - would make anyone a bit toxic. I think this weakens his message (though it's a message) I largely agree with."

Another commenter posted this:

"LGF used to be a very different place, about 30 or so months back. Sigh. The front page is still useful. Beyond that ... Kos in reverse. Sometimes the opposite of a bad idea is also a bad idea."

Amen, to both of them.

ADDENDUM 4:
And because I think it fair that when I criticize, I also scrutinize, I've been wandering back to the OSM site all day. Which means, unfortunately, that I ran across this piece of utterly childish political footstomping that's labeled a "debate" between 4 members of OSM: Austin Bay, Max Sawicky, Brad Friedman and Sgt. Mom.

So let me get this straight (if you'll pardon the pun) -- this is what's supposed to be redefining the discussion: "You're wrong!" "No, you're wrong!" "No, you're a hypocrite!" "No, you're reprehensible!" "It's a Debacle!" "You're unreasonable!" "You're shrill!" "A big lie!" "I'm outta here!" "Fool!"

Jesus Jewish Christ -- I forced myself to read the whole thing, and it made me nostalgic for the New York Times and Maureen Dowd. No thanks.