D Nuts || January 30, 2007

Sick to death of local music Web sites? Then aim your puking reticule away from the screen right about......now, because NBC 5 is joining the fray. The DFW-area TV station's online presence, nbc5i.com, is set to launch its new nightlife arm, DFWScene, on February 5th, according to site producer Greg Janda. In fact, it's up right now, though only in skeleton form.

In addition to the things that the skeleton makes apparent--music, dining, nightlife, general happs--Janda stresses "user-created content" in his pitch of the site. Yuh-oh: This phrase is the bloodiest red flag in modern media, a sopping-wet sign of exasperation and catch-up to the overbaked Web 2.0 hype machine. "Why waste resources making content when our readers can do it for us and save us money?" Aside from the fact that Pegasus News is already knee-deep in its own local 2.0 experiment--why would its forum posters want to jump ship?--we don't buy into the 2.0 principle. The community-driven sites that work (Fark, Digg, YouTube, etc) succeeded because of functionality, not buzzwords and hype.

Not that DFWScene doesn't have its own stuff in the works. Janda says the site is already preparing a profile on Denton band Exit 380, for example...





[long, intentional pause]

So how'd we happen upon this info? Janda sent it to us this morning in trying to lure some Dd'ers to his freelance team (six days before launch, no less), and we're assuming the rest of the local blog roll call received a similar e-mail. If bloggers around town are interested in supplying a huge TV station's blog with articles for free, you might see some familiar faces on DFWScene next week. Hopefully not JR's, though. -SM