Speakers at the Syndicate Conference frequently lamented the “silo” model used by Google to keep content within its fiefdom, and pined for a more open pool of content; the answer to Silicon Valley’s attention quest just may lead it to the Dust Bowl.
In Oklahoma City, LifeChurch formed, and now has multiple campuses. One campus is located on a place we know as The Internet. A link from the slickly designed main page leads to something that looks like what Steve Gillmor and Seth Goldstein and Craig Barnes were talking about – open content.
From the site: …this website is available to pastors and churches worldwide to provide access to and usage of an entire library of LifeChurch.tv creative materials – at absolutely no charge. Materials include outlines from a wide variety of message series, with corresponding promotional design graphics and videos, broadcast-quality opening videos and more. And every bit of it is free…
No strings attached to high quality content, with only the request to use it non-commercially to fulfill the overall mission of a church, connecting people to Christ. There isn’t even a Creative Commons license on what they have produced.
LifeChurch has content contributors and an audience that pays attention to the message. Indeed, the vendor, so to speak, comes to the customer, a scenario envisioned by the advocates of the attention economy.
There’s enough new technology in use to make Mike Arrington and Tim O’Reilly tear up with Web 2.0 joy. Podcasts, blogging, and video chat all have a place in the LifeChurch site. On the site, the Internet Campus Pastor, Brandon Donaldson, writes that a church isn’t a building, but its people. Haven’t the advocates of Attention been telling us the same thing?
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David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
