As I explained over the weekend, Social bookmarking and wikimedia have turned me sour. I’m remain open, however, to other sorts of collaborative media experiments online.

One such experiment is Zimbio, a place where authors, graphic designers and videographers can contribute their efforts to the construction of online magazines that focus on particular topics. It’s kind of like Squidoo, only more cooperative in structure. A Squidoo lensmaster controls a lens fairly tightly, whereas the who purpose of a Zimbio magazine is to have more than one person contributing to it. Zimbio magazines, with multiple pages, also have a lot more room to work with.

We’re experimenting with what Zimbio can do, contributing to the Barack Obama Bumper Sticker magazine there, and constructing our own Ocean News magazine. So far, I’m noticing some different challenges. The Barack Obama Bumper Sticker magazine has its niche clearly defined - perhaps a little too narrowly. Though there are multiple contributors to the magazine, much of their content lacks expansive interest, and I could see it devolving into little more than a classified advertisements sheet.

The Ocean News magazine, however, may be too broad in its attention to work on Zimbio - given that oceans cover most of the face of the Earth. Only one other person has contributed any work to the Oceans magazine, so far, and to be honest I was underwhelmed with the quality of that contribution. So, at the same time that I’m maintaining the Ocean News magazine, I’m also updating our own Protect the Earth’s Oceans page of resources here at Irregular Times.

As the Green Man and I have both pointed out, the crisis in marine ecology is probably the most under-reported story of our time. It’s worth going out on a limb on Zimbio for, I think.

But is working on Zimbio worthwhile in any other sense? I’d like to hear from other people who have worked on Zimbio, and hear what they had to say about the experience.