I’m not often that much of a fan of Steve Rubel but this piece which asks questions about what will happen to Google in the future as its power really starts to bite.

Emily Bell, editor of Guardian Online, writes about new proposed guidelines from the NUJ regarding citizen journalists, or “witness contributors” as they rather bizarrely call them. The real thrust of the argument is that only professional journalists can be relied upon to tell the truth in a consistent and unbiased way.

Emily, with some practical experience of that about which she speaks, is not so sure it will work: “If the Canutes who wish the internet had never happened looked around, they would see dozens of services offering words and pictures on all manner of topics without a single professional or paid-for contribution, none of them traditional media organisations. It does not mean those of us working in new media should never engage our brains, or that quality of output should be sacrificed for quantity, but one can work in a world where readers answer back, and include them in a conversation without making it a subject of bizarre demarcation. Most of us should know enough by now to hold up our hands and say we know almost nothing about the future of the media and how it will develop. What is worrying is that those who know least seem determined to exercise impossible certainty.”

The Center for Citizen Media has posted links to identical Google Image searches for Tiananmen – one on the newly controversial Google China and the other one from the Google we all know and love. Spot the difference?

More from BuzzMachine on the big media vs genuine interaction debate.

More on the Washington Post blog comments story from BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis who offers advice to “old media” companies struggling with the fire hose of interactivity. Insightful stuff.

Alarmed at the personal and vernacular nature of the comments it has received the Washington Post Blog has shut down its comments facility for the foreseeable future.

UPDATE: More here on the article which created the problem in the first place and its aftermath.

This blog from the MIT Advertising Lab looking at the future of advertising and advertising technology is well worth a browse.

Seth Finklestein posts some thoughtful“Skeptical Questions” on Citizen Journalism for Dan Gilmour, who will be giving a talk at Harvard on 17th January on the subject.

Gather is a new Boston-based web business which is about to close a $6m funding round this week, according to Paid Content which aims to “gather” gifted writers by providing them a share of ad revenue collected. It’s a kind of modern-day publishing company…. and sounds a bit similar to the business John Battelle is founding.