Mondoville serves up a mix of Toronto–ish media, pop culture, business and technology news, links and tweets through web-based, social media and mobile online services.
Mondoville is edited by Marc Weisblott (@scroll on Twitter) and produced by Geo Perdis (@geoperdis), Mondoville’s timely dispatches feature original reporting and are are published on weekdays at http://mondoville.com They are also available through RSS and email subscription, Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed pages.
If you have news and tips to share through Mondoville, writeus@mondoville.com.
Mondoville Mediaworks
56 The Esplanade, Suite 305A
Toronto, ON M5E 1A7
Tel.: +1 416 848 6310
Email: writeus@mondoville.com.
Web: http://mondoville.com
Twitter: @mondoville
Buzz
New T.O. blogs set sights on scene
Amy Verner, The Globe and Mail.
Full review online at http://j.mp/2fG7vH
WHO
New-media personality-about-town Geo Perdis recruited opinionated culture scribe Marc Weisblott to build and edit a dishy Toronto-centric site that has broader appeal.
IDEAL AUDIENCE
Devotees of the Daily Beast and the Huffington Post who are looking to quell their hunger for local media news
TONE
Jon Stewart meets The Onion meets Eye Weekly. Translation: Willing to stir the pot in a newsworthy way.
HOGTOWN FLAVOUR
Posts name-check cover a who’s-who of politicians and performers, from George Smitherman and Giorgio Mammoliti to Pamela Anderson and Dragonette’s Martina Sorbara. The monthly Mondoville 100 lists Toronto-ish media and tech types worth following on Twitter.
IF THE SITE WERE A CELEBRITY
Bill Maher, though perhaps a little less caustic.
AROUND IN 2012?
Let’s hope so. The site utilizes the latest communication platforms such as Apture and Posterous, making for an enriched, one-stop experience (think of footnotes in Wikipedia and YouTube form). Mainstream media, take note.
Emerging Business Models for Journalists and Agitators
Jesse Hirsh, Internet Strategist, Researchers and Broadcaster.
Full article online at http://j.mp/1B0Tj5
Mondoville was recently launched here in Toronto by Marc Weisblott and Geo Perdis, two new media types who are as eager as any to find a new business model for online journalism. As with any great site with gumption, they’re not waiting for anyone’s blessing or permission but are just barreling ahead, figuring it out as they go along.
Like Techdirt, Mondoville has become part of my daily media munching, as it provides an eclectic mix of aggregation, analysis, rumour, event coverage, and for lack of a better phrase, what I’ll call the “construction of contextual tweet-based narratives”. As well, Mondoville likes to play with the integration of various social media tools and platforms, not so much in a typical way, but rather experimenting with their emergent potential.
Recently, as a sign of their growing success, Mondoville was criticized by @tamera for not having enough snark. I later reiterated this charge upon reading yesterday’s article on the current CRTC hearings, as I wanted to see the dinosaurs get their due. Which is really less of a criticism, and more the voice of a passionate reader who wants the writer to go even further.
In fact, after a few more minutes of reflection, I realized I’d be quite happy to pay for such snark, pledging my funds via twitter: “@geoperdis $50 to go after the gerontocracy another $50 for the kleptocracy and a final $50 to ridicule this hypocrisy with raunch profanity.”
Yet while I was being playful, I was also quite serious. Put a paypal button on the bottom of posts and the more the writing entertains and satisfies my intellectual need to see multiple sides to a story, the more reasons I’ll find as a reader to support these kinds of emerging sites.
Which is not to say that I envision a model of journalism in which each article solicits individual payments after the fact, but rather I do see a model in which you give your readers ample opportunity to contribute, both financially, and editorially. Allow them to invest in your venture and as stakeholders they will stick around for the long haul, ensuring you have what you need to succeed.
Mondoville and Required Reading: Toronto’s Gawker and Fimoculous?
Navneet Alang, Web Columnist, This Magazine. Blogger, Scrawled in Wax.
Full article online at http://j.mp/uvuqs
Mondoville, which is looking pretty good, was launched by Toronto media gadfly Marc Weisblott. Tweeting under the name @scroll, he relentlessly critiques Toronto media’s inability to react quickly enough to the web or create new media entities. While it’s true that he can be a bit of an asshole sometimes (sorry Marc, it’s true), he’s doing a heck of a lot more good than most, and he has a solid understanding of the web and its culture.
Mondoville is very Gawker-like. It’s pop, focused on celebrity, but smart and snarky, and carries with it that hard-to-describe ‘web vibe’ – irony, wit, pastiche etc. The design is clean, and the homepage has a tracker for popular trending Twitter topics in Toronto, which adds to the sense that it’s a ‘destination site’. The only real critique I would level at it is that it follows the “let’s start another blog” model. I would have liked to see some form of melding social-networking and blog a la Gdgt, or at least a new-ish approach like Mediaite.
Still, the more important thing is that it’s a place for web-savvy Torontonians to see their city’s place in a larger culture. So frequently, our conception of where we live is dependent upon its representation in the public sphere. And how many movies or novels or games are about Toronto? Almost none, right? So I think that’s a bigger deal than it sounds. I often wonder if Toronto so frequently feels like the city that almost-could because there is a sense Toronto doesn’t exist in global culture the way it should. More to the point, public visions of local culture give us something to share – something that we desperately lack.
