Dan Gillmor [3] of the Center for Citizen Media [4] has written a thoughtful assessment of the current state of citizen journalism [5]. "We've come a long way," he says. "But we have a long, long way to go. We need much more experimentation in journalism and community information projects. The business models are, at best, uncertain — and some notable failures are discouraging." He points to examples of citizen journalism in action such as the following:

• the infamous "Macaca [6]" video that helped lose last year's election for Virginia Senator George Allen [7]
• Placeblogger [8], which lists thousands of community-focused weblogs.
• Pambazuka News [9], an African podcasting service that calls itself a "weekly forum for social justice in Africa."

Gillmor also notes that some heavily-hyped efforts at commercial citizen journalism have failed, such as Backfence.com [10] and Gillmor's own Bayosphere.com [11]. However, he adds, "The cost of trying new ideas is heading toward zero. That means lots and lots of people will — already are — testing the possibilities of new media. ... So the R&D that the news industry should have done years ago is now being done in a highly distributed way. Yes, some is being done by people inside media companies, but most is not — and increasingly it won't be. It'll take place in universities, in corporate labs, in garages and at kitchen tables."