Could Twitter save real journalism?

One of the most shocking sports stories from the last week included the shrouded news of Steve McNair, former quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens and Tennessee Titans as well as a breakthrough college star at Alcorn State. On Saturday July 4th, news started coming from a variety of sources that McNair had been found dead in his home; a true loss for the sport overall because of the level of play, commitment, and toughness that McNair showed.

The manner in which the story broke on the holiday led to several more examples of the Statusphere vs. Mainstream Media. There were some that were brutally scathing of MSM's coverage, such as Aaron Brazell's piece over at Technosailor:

WKRN, in Nashville, was the first with the news and it quickly disappeared off their page – a result of too much traffic or erroring on the side of caution, who is to really know.

NBC Affiliate WTVF, Channel 5, was the second to report it filling the gap where WKRN dropped off.

It was a long time (30 minutes or so) before national media picked it up. ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in Sports by their own slogan, didn’t have it. No one did. We were left gasping for more. Is the rumor true? Can anyone confirm? Can police confirm?

Was any of us on Twitter making calls? Maybe. A few possibly. Not many.

There were a few other comments in and throughout Brazell's post, as well as follow-up from the readers questioning his rush to blame, but I think that he may have taken it too far to the end of the spectrum. When it comes to a story surrounded by so many circumstances, it is obviously in the best interest of the journalistic community to get the story right. 30 minutes to check the story is better than getting it wrong, correcting it, and making the error the story, not the event.

On the complete other end of the spectrum is an old media guy accusing Twitter of being too involved in the conversation about the former-MVPs passing. Tim Keown, a long-time writer at ESPN put together this piece in response to the reaction of another NFL QB's wife that was captured in the midst of the coverage. The same negativity Brazell had toward ESPN for failing to report the story, Keown has toward Twitter for pressuring MSM to respond:

The problem is, there is a widespread attempt in the media to bring validity to the enterprise. There's pressure to get stuff out there, to be connected to the story. CNN wants us to follow it on Twitter, when following it on CNN should be about all it demands of us. Viewers are invited to respond, and there's nothing quite like the awfulness of a guy reading a truncated, abbreviated, code-language message from someone with no expertise beyond opposable thumbs.

(And I'll say it before you do: There are exceptions, and the election protests in Iran are a big one. Without Twitter, the amount of useful information leaving that country would be minimal at best. This leaves aside the validity of the information being Twittered -- or whatever the heck you want to call it -- but that's secondary to the importance of the technology in spreading useful information.)

The bold in the above section is mine. Also, I wanted to include Keown's waiver to not completely throw him under the bus, but that shouldn't be a complete hand washing for the piece.

Twitter has broken stories, we know that. Folks in DC will recall when Twitter was in its mainstream infancy and news about Tim Russert spread, in addition to the reference Keown makes and the many other breaking outlets. Remember: that's not what Twitter's purpose is, to be a journalistic mainstay. It's for information sharing, not confirmation; we need to recognize the bridge between the two.

Sure, as a reporter, you have to move a little quicker now, but let that be an advantage, not a hurdle. Keown opined that this stuff will sink the media ship, but he places to high of a premium on what it means for journalism to be accompanied by "You heard it here first." That's ignorant, to me.

For journalists, the service should be used like a hiker uses a compass: it doesn't show you the trail, just points you in the right direction. We are telling you where to go, just don't get lost along the way and everyone stays happy.

Instant Reaction: Twitter Volleys to Mainstream Media

(cc) Flickr user Koltregaskes

Laptop open here in front of me, I'm absolutely engrossed in about the third hour I've watched in a row of this fantastic tennis match at Wimbledon's Centre Court.

The match literally just ended, and a heartbreaking five-set match (including a 30 game, 16-14 clincher for Roger) has been nothing short of amazing. The thing is: I know I wasn't alone in watching this historic match.

I started watching pretty early on this morning, around the third set when Roger was pulling together a tie-breaker win. The general chatter among friends and followers had little to do with tennis, or if they did, it was a small acknowledgment of that Twitter would keep them in the know.

I find it fascinating though that the normal, Sunday morning, light chatter on Twitter quickly turned into a "are you watching this?" as the fifth set kept plugging along. It was more a call of the community to get to their television and flick straight over to the epic set. It was a grueling match, completely entertaining - but the word of mouth power of Twitter drove the audience away from 140 characters to live television.

This is what I think is the most misunderstood power of Twitter. It isn't about keeping a contained conversation - it's about flagging things that need to be developed further. Whether it was something vain like the call to watch Chuck or something more breaking or revolutionary, the questions within these trending topics wasn't what was inside the twittersphere, it was why we needed to look beyond it.

Wimbledon was a tiny, ignorable case study for the most part. It wasn't self-contained to Twitter, I saw similar questions in my Facebook stream. It's probably another chink in the MSM armor, but, to me, it's fascinating that global events have a community that exists beyond ISPs, time zones, and borders.

Sports and media go hand in hand, especially major and live tournaments. The US Soccer run from the last weeks had similar legs online, but I don't know if we'll get a real test of the system any time soon. I'd argue that the Winter Olympics offer the opportunity, but given they are in North American time zones, the possibility for an overseas spoiler is slim because of the timing of events. Had this been around for Turino in 2006 - or if the medium still exists/operates like it does in the summer of 2012 for London - it presents a fascinating challenge for sports media. (Just like year's past, I'm assuming that ESPN will broadcast next summer's World Cup live, so we won't get to test this theory then).

NBC had the live broadcast this morning - it would have been useless to those who tracked it online if they didn't. This just may be the biggest change for which media will have to prepare. The twitter sphere demands live coverage (just check #CNNFAIL). Does this mean that it will be necessary to broadcast non-primetime, live coverage of overseas sporting events from now on? It's the only way media will be able to provide the access and coverage the audience wants - and the word of mouth among fans will have to be the TV guide we need to find the way.

The Twitter Revolt Against Mainstream Media

The below piece is an Op-Ed I co-authored with one of the really smart people I work with here at Edelman, Dave Almacy, and is also available at PR Week (subscription required). It's also cross-posted at Dave's blog, Capital Gig.

From Moldova to Motrin Moms, Twitter has become the arena of coordinated, widespread revolution several times over the last year. Still, when we look back on how the microblogging platform has evolved into a low-barrier tool for grassroots organizing, these will only be footnotes to the events of the last few days in Tehran. As protestors took to the streets of Iran to voice their discontent with the 2009 presidential election results, people from around the world were attentively watching updates from the ground on Twitter, long before hearing reports from any major news outlets.

The collection of status updates on Twitter provided the world an inside look on the dire situation within Iran from firsthand accounts, each message deeply personal and compelling to a worldwide audience. But when the masses turned to their favorite cable news network for more information, they were met with Mike Huckabee talking about credit cards or other irrelevant programming. With no recognizable coverage in mainstream media as events unfolded, it led users to cry foul on the news networks, demanding more information than 140 characters could deliver.

Among the many Twitter-fueled stories from the event, the one that impacts media coverage the most may be how this backchannel removed the mainstream filter to display an amalgamated concept of the news. It gave the masses – first inside Tehran and then across the world – a crude and easy way to drive the issues that concerned them to the top of the marketplace of ideas.

The crowd felt a sense of entitlement for news they wanted covered, and it left the media world playing defense to users who had turned the trending topics sidebar on Twitter’s home page into their own headlines; a user-generated “above the fold” that reflected the group’s dissatisfaction through leads like #CNNFail. Twitter became the instant ombudsman for the media establishment, holding media accountable for what they were - or were not - broadcasting.

The members of the news desk, as well as PR professionals with a vested interested in its agenda, must face the fact that the pulse is beating within a crowd that has tools at their fingertips to easily express their thirst for a certain story. Whether a global issue like the Iranian elections or a local story, communicators must now adapt to provide insights that will smooth the edges and shine the news called for by the crowd.

Sports, Media, and My Childhood

It was June of 1998, a day long before Twitter, Gmail, blackberries, SMS or any of the other myriad things I write about here. I was barely a high-schooler, and vividly recall reading a USA Today article about the record-breaking month for which a Chicago Cubs outfielder was on pace.



I was younger, obviously, but also still a bright-eyed teenager coming to grips with the resurgence of the game that once taught me about the loyalty and joy of sports before crushing a young kid's hope within the 15 years before that moment. I cheered as McGwire's 62nd home run sneak over the left field wall in St. Louis that September on an 11 inch TV I stealthily moved into my bedroom. I could cheer the return of the game on the back of these athletes.

Now I love the game, but like everyone, I'm suspicious of the athletes. I'm critical - I wrote my collegiate thesis on how the sports media, both on and offline, covered the steroid scandal of 2005 in light of what sports fans were looking to read. Do we want to hear more of this? No, not really. What's changed between 11 years ago and today? Well, for one thing, we stopped caring about the greed of players' unions as the inescapable vice of professional athletes and started pining for the purity of the game. However, there are a few bigger things in the works here regarding professional athletes, the sports media, access and doubt.

As Dan Shanoff wrote this morning:

"Accusing one person specifically of doing something wrong? You better have specific evidence to back it up.

But accuse everyone of doing something? You're in the clear! Accuse away!

That was the lesson of the [Raul] Ibanez thing last week, especially combined with the Sosa thing this week: Cynicism rules."

I only linked to the coverage of the Raul Ibanez blogger-media-steroid accusation debate from last week that Shanoff is mentioning without going into too much detail, but suffice to say, Dan is right on. Here's the difference: in 1998, we didn't have any reason to suspect - or the means to blog and twitter - a sudden surge of power, we now have a motive and ability to express our discontent. The crime with a blogger calling on Raul Ibanez's tremendous season was not the accusation, it was that it singled out the player.

The other change? Athletes now have the ability to remove that filter, too. Ibanez felt within his rights to respond directly to his accuser. Blogger or journalist, it didn't matter - the playing field is now level when it comes to media relations.

Sports Illustrated covered the Athlete-Tweeting phenomenon in May, and the telling quote may have been from the real life version of The_Real_Shaq:

Another attraction: Twitter lets athletes speak on their own terms. "In this world we live in now, everybody becomes media," says Shaquille O'Neal, who has an enormous Twitter following of 950,000. "If something is going to be said, hey, it's coming from me." Journalists may lament athletes passing over the middle men. But honestly, what's more interesting, a "we gave 110 percent" from the postgame podium, or a tweet like this from Shaq last week: "Dam manny ramirez, come on man Agggggggggh, agggggggh, agggggh."

Baseball has changed since 1998, along with our impressions of slugging athletes, communication and more. The communications revolution just so happened to coincide with the Steroids Era. Who knew that we would get something so fake and so authentic at the exact same moment of history?

Twitter vs the TV Spoiler

So, as could be concluded from a few recent posts about a certain NBC show that could be canned in the coming weeks, I tend to watch TV on Monday nights. It's not just Chuck: the universe has collided to also give me 24 and How I Met Your Mother on at nearly the same time, causing DVR panic attacks everywhere.

But, as we are a week removed from the incredible season finale (and I'm confidentially calling it that) and still a week or more before some other finales, I thought I could spend the evening taking in some live sporting action. Exhibit A:


Ovechkin Hat Trick means Caps Win!

The plan was simple. Watch some hockey, then go home and let the power of the DVR do the rest. Unfortunately, I decided to use some of the second intermission (in a deadlocked 2-2 game) to check to see if any friends were also talking about the game on Twitter.

Well, I learned my lesson. Thanks, Kim, for ruining the surprise at the end of this week's episode of How I Met Your Mother.

But here's the thing: I'm wrong to be disappointed in the spoiler. It's my own damn fault that I got this news. Why? Because, like all of social media, Twitter is opt-in. I shouldn’t ask the people from whom I’ve already agreed to receive information to customize it to me. Even though I logged into Twitter to be a part of one conversation, the peripheral effect of the network brought me into another one.

And, in the spirit of last night's episode of HIMYM (which I have now seen), let me try and show it through a chart or two:

This is how one conversation would work in social media. It isn't a top-down communication, it's a community of people who represent both the source and the audience. Note that everyone can be both:


But it's a little unrealistic, because so many of our conversations overlap:


Kim had no idea about my community of Caps fans. She just wanted to talk about HIMYM, a community of which I'm also a part. Why should I blame her? I chose to follow her, didn't I?

Crowdsourcing to Save Chuck

Shortly after the Academy Awards this year, I pulled together some thoughts on the idea of the Twitter community expanding the size of a couch. Well, I'm actually really kind of excited to watch now that the community is focusing its energy on a pop culture cause: saving a bubble show from potential cancellation.

For those who aren't familiar with NBC's Chuck, it's kind of a geek's wildest dream type show. Guy (Zachary Levi's Chuck - no relation) gets the entire secrets of the CIA downloaded into his head and has to balance his day job as a Nerd Herder (a TV-fied version of Best Buy's Geek Squad) with being a super agent. Doesn't hurt that his "handlers" include the smokin' Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) and witty, business-as-usual, tough guy John Casey (Adam Baldwin).

No wonder Twitterers and Bloggers love the show: it's the perfect type of show for the Geekdom. Scattered throughout the series are references to Tron, cheap shots at the Zune, and an episode this season in which Rush's "Tom Sawyer" was proven to be the music of the universe as Chuck saves the world - again (check the recap of that episode below). It's definitely perfect for the inside-the-series-of-tubes crowd.



So, when rumors started circulating that NBC has yet to pick up Chuck for a third season, the groundswell started. TV blog Give Me My Remote shifted it's focus to "Give Me My Chuck" with a week of posts and an entire kit for you to dedicate your online presence to the show, and make sure NBC notices it. GMMR was joined by TV Squad and a bunch of separate Twitterers to drive traffic and exposure of the movement by healthy doses of the #savechuck hashtag and some key follows to drive more awareness.

Well, NBC probably isn't going to renew a show because of hashtags alone (although, I would have to chalk that up to Twitter winning the Internet if that happened). Someone over at star Zachary Levi's fan site had an idea for an easy offline display: and the solution involves a jingle that will not leave your head once you read this.

The $5 Footlong Campaign.

Well, it's getting noticed. Coverage of the movement in the LA Times TV blog and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, encouragement from some of the show's actors and, then my favorite moment of the day, Zachary Levi at a Subway in Birmingham, UK, filling in as a Sandwich Artist (which, naturally, was Twitpic'd and is creeping up there in views).

Why I care? One, the show is one of my current favorites. It'd be a shame to lose one of the few shows that isn't about hospitals or cops and if it gets replaced with more reality TV, I'll cry. But, why I'm taking up space here is because I think this is a nifty case study on pop cultures new found place within Twitter. Think about the Subway idea - that would not have ever been possible back a few years ago. Not necessarily to ask people to do it, but the actual proof that it was done. Just check this Twitter search of "Subway Chuck" to see the archive of involvement.

Of course, this is noteworthy because it isn't astroturfed by Subway or NBC (at least, it doesn't appear that way). Imagine the storm that would happen if it was - and I'm not willing to bet the farm that someone tries this later as a copy cat campaign. Subway is the beneficiary, everyone has to eat lunch anyway, why *not* make an ironic decision to actually tweet about what you are eating - and why?

Could it be that if we had Twitter, maybe Arrested Development would still be around? NBC will announce its lineup for the 2009 fall on May 5. Please NBC: don't cancel Chuck.

The #FDC Final Four

It's game on at 10 a.m. today, my friends, in the Final Four of the Famous DC Twitter Challenge.

Thanks to Mr. Yogato, there are some pretty great stakes involved in this little contest. Naming a yogurt flavor is great, but really happy to see we'll get some good will going, as well. Since this is for charity, I want to go ahead and give some real estate to the Run For Research and the American Liver Foundation. In support of one of my closest friends and former college roommate, this is the charity I'll be offering up in true "Celebrity $25,000 Pyramid" style. No matter what, it's a great cause for which he is running the Boston Marathon in two weeks, and I'm happy to support it.

The name of my yogurt flavor, well, according to the rules I have until 3 p.m. to announce - and I have to see if I can smoke out my opponents answer first...

How can you help? Click this link and you'll get a pre-filled "endorsement" message. We all need to work together on this one, and hopefully this will make it easy.

Some inspiration, courtesy of Mr. Carl Spackler:

Targeting Twitter is the New Pink

Now that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, (well, her office anyway) has joined Twitter, you really know it's about time we fire up the "Jump the Shark moment" clamoring (Nuke the Fridge even?).

As we stroll along towards the great mainstreaming of Twitter (I'm still not buying it), it's no question that it'll get elevated to a more regular level of curiosity and ridicule. The first sign, as passed around several times this week, was the below clip of Jon Stewart "shaking his fist" at technology:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

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I want to make one quick point and move on: for everyone watching this clip and gleefully enjoying that "they're inside on the joke," make sure to listen to Stewart carefully because there's some advice in there. The point of ridicule here isn't that everyone's using it: it's that some people use it as a gimmick instead of an informative platform. Stewart's rant should not come off, "Hey! everyone's talking about Twitter now, we did it!" He's not mocking the tool (or it's popularity); he's mocking those who treat it like a "shiny thing."

It wasn't just "Old Man Stewart" taking cheap shots this week; on the other end of the spectrum was a down-nose look from Google CEO, Eric Shmidt:

"In other words, they have aspects of an email system, but they don't have a full offering. To me, the question about companies like Twitter is: Do they fundamentally evolve as sort of a note phenomenon, or do they fundamentally evolve to have storage, revocation, identity, and all the other aspects that traditional email systems have? Or do email systems themselves broaden what they do to take on some of that characteristic?

[...]

"Twitter's success is wonderful, and I think it shows you that there are many, many new ways to reach and communicate, especially if you are willing to do so publicly."

Since then, Schmidt has backtracked a little on his comments, but it's still worth considering his point.

I've found myself explaining Twitter a lot, recently, and I don't think I've ever compared it to e-mail. In fact, my most common simile is the AIM Away Message, but with interaction.

But never e-mail. Just because there is a direct messaging system that notifies via e-mail (I’d actually say its more like SMS ultimately), it’s hardly the same. The public facing nature of it is exactly what makes it different than an IM client and e-mail. Storage isn't the purpose, and, a fundamental difference is that you can't link to an e-mail. You have to send it. E-mail may be someone's online home, but links are still the currency.

The target is squarely on Twitter's back - FailWhales and all kinks better be out as the scaling starts happening faster. Luckily, SXSW is right around the corner, so we won't have to wait long. This year's theme: "Back in the Day."

The Big Couch

Andrew Wilson has been making a pretty decent impact on Twitter in only his first few weeks. Sure, he is mainly on there in a role benefiting his work at HHS as one of the members of its social media team.

The reason why he has gained such great traction though is because (a) he's personal and (b) he's not all business. He's genuine and participating in the conversation as it happens - not trying to latch on to one's that are mildly related.

Professionally, I do my best to track and keep up on health news for my clients. That's one of the reasons I've started following Wilson. The thing is, I have a very low tolerance for people who talk a lot on Twitter with no rhyme or reason. Andrew may tweet frequently, but it is still tolerable because of how he uses it.

Wilson treats it not only as a professional tool, but on a genuine level of being involved. He does not require a Scoble-level cost to follow. Perfect example? This tweet from last night that had nothing to do with Peanut Butter, the FDA or HHS:


With that really excessive overture about one guy who uses Twitter, we finally arrive at my thesis of the day. Several times in the past year, I wondered aloud that, in order for Twitter to not be a geek/flack/wonk back channel, we needed to talk about normal, social things like sports, TV and music. Last night, during the Academy Awards, we saw our first true glimpse of it.

I tend to be wordy - it's a curse. Luckily, I follow Andrew on Twitter, and if I didn't, I would have missed this short and sweet retweet in the storm of conversations almost entirely about the Oscars. It was fascinating to watch because, even if folks are claiming that the recent mainstreaming is causing Twitter to Jump the Shark, it isn't a bad thing for the service to be normalized. I'm just happy we're talking more about what's going on than necessarily about the technology itself.

Some of my favorite reactions last night that worked because all of us were plugged-in, around the country? The instant reaction to Jackman's fantastic opening, the gut check on Whoppi's choice of clothing, and the triumph of Sean Penn and Slumdog Millionaire. There was a really interesting shift in the social tone of this year's Oscars. All of us, together, continuing that conversation made it even better.

I like the image of a bigger couch, because the reaction is immediate and personal. The most familiar saying that I know, (I'm paraphrasing here, and I wish I could cite this off my head) is that the Internet doesn't change the way we talk, it just makes the barroom bigger. That can be a good thing, like we saw last night. It can be a dangerous thing (ever seen something escalate quickly at a bar?).

Definitely food for thought that I will revisit later. For now, let's revel in what was a really entertaining Oscar show - efficient, interesting, not over-the-top, and personal.

Hmm - how perfect, it's kind of like Twitter at it's best.

Blaming Social Media for Not Letting Go Of College

While I'm in no ways fully a grown-up (never will be), I actually have been out of college for several years. Someday soon, I'll have been out of college longer than I was in Chestnut Hill, Mass.

But, if you have ever seen my Twitter stream in the heart of the fall...

...actually, for that matter, even in terms of other social media attempts...

...maybe you've seen an out-of-place article here or there on this blog about something crazy I did while a student...

...or caught my Facebook page, which broadcasts my love of my Alma Mater. Not only through the networks that I list (and, of course, how I first got into Facebook), but also through photos and applications...


...or even saw that I still get the Heights every Monday and Tuesday in my e-mail...

...you would probably assume I have issues letting go.

I do, but that's not the point.

Many of my every-day-social-networks are things that I really came into using while a student, and I was at the inception of some of those networks. Now, college students actually are adding their university network to established groups once they finish high school. Joining in new networks is not change, but our old networks are digitalized, so there is no reason for them to disappear through the distance like they used to.

Clay Shirky made a great point about college students and social networks in Here Comes Everybody, but I want to add something in. Shirky looked at the ability of these pre-existing networks to continue on to organize around an issue. Of course, being able to keep like-minded individuals connected is huge for creating a crowd. But I think there's a preservation element, as well, regardless of an issue to rally around.

Interesting to think about how many more people I've kept in touch with through knowing they've been out and about at an event because of Facebook news feed. Even still, thinking about common friends I knew in passing at school, but have joined in conversations with because of Twitter. In fact, I reconnected with a few folks through these lines of communication that I otherwise never would have had if I graduated even two year earlier.

Of course, not being disconnected has it's downside. I was proud to be one of the first student government campaigns to create a Facebook group back when I ran one four years ago. Well, it's election time on BC's campus right now. And, four years later, not only are these types of ticket-based support groups constantly being created, college students are still asking me for my support. The main reason? Because I'm still a part of the social network and I can affect other BC students news feeds.

Will I ever get away? Who knows. I guess I never can as long as I stay a part of this network of people.

One point to understand: I'm totally ok with that.

Seriously, stop talking about yourself

I've been playing around with accounts on services I setup ages ago but never got into (FriendFeed, Dopplr), but during all of that, I also started playing with Tweetag more.

I started thinking "could this be as useful as Google Trends." Eh, yes and no. I mean, look at this (pay close attention to the arrow):


As most folks have seen, tag clouds like this emphasize the most discussed topics by making them larger in the crowd. Tweetag does that based on recent Twitter conversation, and this image is from this afternoon. My question is, why is Twitter up there with "weekend" in terms of most mentioned things?

I think I've now found, in my last two posts, my biggest disappointments in Twitterland.

Twitter is growing, and we know that (Hitwise reported last week that Twitter has caught up to Digg). A lot of folks mentioned that the constant FailWhales of last summer indicated that the Tipping Point was happening. With all of these added voices, are we still just talking about Twitter as a service on Twitter? That makes no sense.

This to me shows that we are still far off from the Tipping Point. The way I see it, it won't be displayed by volume of users; it has to be shown in diversity of voice. As soon as the conversations really topple into the less techie world, then I'll call Twitter mainstream. And not a minute before.

Is Retweeting killing the H/T?

I've increasingly noticed in the last few weeks that, and I don't mean to call it lazy, but "Retweeting" is really dominating the Twitter network.

I've been known to do an RT @[fill in the blank] on occasion, but I only try to do it when someone has managed to be really clever in a recent short-form post.

The way I feel, reposting someone else's fully original tweet deserves an RT. If they can fit something that good in the short space, give them credit for it and walk away.

My concern, though, is that it's beginning to replace any additional commentary. I've seen an extraordinary amount of RT's that merely replicate a link to an article. We aren't continuing a conversation, just reposting it without any thought. That's lazy.

My greater fear is that it's going to become a "hey, look who I'm following" or "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." This is confirmed by new services like Retweetist, another part in the attempt to determine authority on the Twitter network. In the last month, we've had (a) number of followers, (b) equal balance of following to followers and, now, (c) frequency of replicated content.

I don't trust it. I want to go back to the days of the H/T or HT. You know, the:



Give someone credit for sharing a link, but add something. You have plenty of room left if you try. Be slightly original, that's all I ask. Otherwise, you're just sending the same links around over and over and making something that looks like a vacuum-like echo chamber.

I think I may be over-hopeful, but I still believe that social media is about a conversation, not a never ending pat on the back.

Two Stories I Don't Want to See about US Airways Flight 1549

I think this should be a series.

Everyone is safe from the Thursday afternoon incident in the Hudson river. Which means people are going to take about a five-second deep breath and then jump right into to over-analyzing.

Yes, the first images broke on Twitter. Absolutely fascinating, if you ask me, because of the angle and the style. I don't know if I would have seen that photo without Twitter, this is true.

But, it doesn't mean you can write the following two stories:

1) Citizen Journalism + Twitter = Heaven. No, it's a valuable resource that provides a unique, first-person snapshot of events. Twitter is bite-sized, which means its great for fast reactions or pictures, but we aren't going to see the end of all top-down media because we are all equipped with camera phones. It's a reaction - not the vehicle for analysis. A couple of reasons, but "Retweet" doesn't imply a conversation - especially when, by that point, everyone had turned to CNN to watch unfold.

2) Social media provided all of the comfort when everyone was OK. Twitter/Facebook helped get the word out about how everyone was safe, but I'm sure that people directly impacted wanted to hear a voice, and traditional media played a big part on getting to the scene with more images. There's an important lesson in the value of Breaking News in all of this, but something should be said for personal interaction to those who's loved ones were involved.

I think we got an incredibly interesting perspective out of social media, but let's take it for what it is and not too much more. Everyone's safe, that's what matters.

Fail Whale to the nth

Update: Looks like everything is back online as of 8:45 EST


Twitter down?

Interesting development this morning that isn't really being talked about...but it looks like Twitter is all sorts of Fail Whales and Bots right now.

Of course, it's upsetting for me because I've spent the last hour trying to get a snarky tweet up about Hollywood Squares...more info as it comes in. I've been trying since probably around 7 a.m. EST

I mean, how are we supposed to know if we can't go check Twitter to see if everyone is talking about it being down...it looks like teh internets are collapsing

The Asteroid Belt

I really enjoyed David Armano's post yesterday on coping with online identities over at Logic+Emotion.

Now, I'm not that big on the whole lifestreaming thing. Keeping things separate is actually important to me (I feel like I've said this a bunch recently). Keeping ownership of my digital identity - wherever it may be hiding - means keeping things in line and where they should be.

I'm halfway there on the first tip from the article, too (plus I love the image):

1. Analyze and prioritize your social systems
Go through all of your streams and prioritize the ones that you really care about and use. Think about the content on them and how frequently you keep the stream up to date. The ones with high frequency and content that you think is valuable should go to the top of the list. Think of these as your social systems—the ones that are active are part of your system, if not they eventually become dying planets.

I wanted to add in one more thing that I do to keep in control. I have my comfort levels of how far out I'm willing to go, and, to go with Dave's metaphor, I'll call it my asteroid belt.


For example, I tend to let my social link sharing happen through my other services - Twitter, Facebook - but that's enough for me. I don't do nearly enough shareable powerpoint presentations to make Slideshare part of my grab bag. For me, my asteroid belt is somewhere just past the LinkedIn ring. I'll adventure out there, but I like my half of the solar system just fine.

The other thing I really love about this image is that - yes, Virginia - you are the center of your social media. As I try to get my "real world" (read: non digital media geeks) friends to embrace something like Twitter, usually I get the same response. Many of you do, too.

"Isn't that a little stalkerish?"

No. It's not. You choose what you update. You choose who you follow to get information that they choose to update (we're back to this intent idea, hmm). You can even block people. Social media revolves around *you* if you choose to participate. Twitter is not a thing, following you around and publishing what you are doing/reading/breathing/drinking/wearing.

Although, I would like to try this for a day. Any volunteers to let me to be their Designated Tweeter? That sounds like an entire post and obnoxious case study in and of itself.

A hashtag is more important than you think

When the social media folk aren’t in the midst of verbal spars about what defines online authority (and, I’m with Jeff Jarvis: it isn’t mass of followers and audience size), they are spending their time looking for things that relate to their interests.

Obviously, this is the glory of online search. People don’t wade through stacks of information until they find something they need anymore. The act of information seeking brings them directly what they want. Some trust Google. Some trust the online voices they deem credible based on experience, perceived authority (or number of followers, you know, if that’s your thing).

No matter the way, it’s up to the user to discriminate information by whatever parameters they chose. I use a lot of these methods, but I also want to touch on a factor I use to validate information in my searches: intent.

Online authors aren’t known for being cryptic and writing between the lines. A Facebook note isn’t really that much space to build a story of Dickensian complexity. But words, phrases, side references to pop culture happen. For instance, I don't write that much about British Literature. But I'm sure, give it some time, and this page will come up when people search "Dickensian."

Bloggers have a quick, shorthand way to classify the topic they discuss with tags. Tags are separate from the post, but they link that article to other posts of the same topic as the author sees it. Naturally, half of mine are ridiculous and make little sense on their own. That’s not the point. The author meant to categorize them this way. That is.

This all brings me to the hashtag. Twitter users know the # sign as the symbol the user affixes to a word to indicate that the message belongs to a specific conversation or group. Here’s why it’s more important than you think: intending to be included in a group is much more important than coming up in a Twitter search. The #MotrinMoms weren’t looking for each other as part of the conversation. They were showing support, indicating that they were taking a side on the. It was more than being able to find conversations through a search. It was taking a stance on the issue and making a declaration intentionally.

A hashtag yells, “Include me.”

People tweet about the products they use all the time, but a lot of them may only be passing mentions. When it comes to corporations, do you think any good can come out of getting a hashtag affixed to your brand? Better, when that crisis hits, do you want to find through the onlookers or the activists?

#Exactly

What I Want from Social Media in 2009

I'm not asking for much. This I promise.

I just want to be able to take more control of my digital identity - and get more information from it than ever before. That's not a lot. I don't need new social networks. I just want to use the ones I'm in better.

Three things I'd like to see in social media to leverage my connections, relationships, friendships and more:

1) Stop turning LinkedIn into Facebook for Grown-ups. ReadWriteWeb nailed this last week, but I just wanted to add something else to the idea. I only want LinkedIn to keep my contacts in one place, and reconnect with people who I want to keep away from my social profiles on Facebook (even though I know that anything online is my profile - you can't hide, lesson number one. Luckily, I have a high shame threshold). Keep LinkedIn simple and it will continue its value.

2) Some help from Twitter to intelligently expand conversation networks. It'd be nice to start with an acknowledgment from Twitter about its best tools and then building them directly into the interface. Acquiring Summize was great because it was a step of incorporating the tools that people created for Twitter. But given how search is the driving force of well, EVERYTHING, why isn't it on the main page? Better yet, what else can we pull from the best tools? As new ones get created, what will they be and how can Twitter pull them into the interface? For example, I'd love to see a "Mutual Followers" similar to "Mutual Friends."

3) Facebook Insights for everyone. (This is about as geeky as I get). Businesses get it with their information. Why can't we all have the tools to look at our friends? Let's say I end up on a field trip to somewhere exotic for work or for a wedding. Who am I not thinking about who may have moved there? I want to be able to quickly build a list of friends in a certain region - why is it such a pain in the ass? Give me the demographics of my friends. Tell me who I have the most in common with so I know to invite folks to events and not leave people out. Which of my friends are on blackberries, iPhones, so I can reach them on the fly? I know that not everyone in the world cares as much about these things, but if the information is there (and we know it is), make it available.

So, there we go. It's going to be a geeky year. I feel it.

404: Coolest Digits Around

When did the 404 error message become a contest? I mean, Twitterers everywhere know the Fail Whale intimately by now, but it's becoming a new Internet fad to be clever when something goes wrong.

I feel like FAILure has become the newest trend around the interwebs since RickRolling died down last spring. It has it's own dedicated landing page of people being "witty" about calling things out.

As fun as it is to point out other people's failure, handling your own downfalls are a better sign of class. The Fail Whale is the perfect example. It became an Internet meme in its own right because Twitter was willing to give someone more than a boring "File Not Found" message.

Patrick Ruffini just caught this one when snooping around the Obama site:


There's also Hulu's clever way of telling you that something is wrong. If you go to a page that doesn't exist, the message also comes accompanied with this video:



I wonder where this leads us to. The tech circles are getting really good at calling each other out when it comes to an error. Are those who are willing to take it in stride and brush it off protecting themselves? We mocked Twitter, we didn't stop using it. No, people built sculptures of the Fail Whale.

My old and steady rule comes back: you have to be willing to laugh at yourself before you can laugh.

The Wrong Way to Build a Mobile Outreach List

Got this e-mail yesterday evening:

Dear David --

Barack Obama is about to make one of the most important decisions of this campaign -- choosing a running mate.

You have helped build this movement from the bottom up, and Barack wants you to be the first to know his choice.

Sign up today to be the first to know:

http://my.barackobama.com/vp

You will receive an email the moment Barack makes his decision, or you can text VP to 62262 to receive a text message on your mobile phone.

Once you've signed up, please forward this email to your friends, family, and coworkers to let them know about this special opportunity.

No other campaign has done this before. You can be part of this important moment.

Be the first to know who Barack selects as his running mate.

Thanks,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

I give you the wrong way to build an opt-in list. Completely artificial and offering little to no incentive. Finding out 15 minutes before other people by your phone going off should not be justification to collect e-mails and phone numbers of (this is my personal favorite) *people who are already on your e-communication list.*

BTW, just because I wanted to be an informed critic, I did want to see how this little texting thing was going to work. The message that comes back has *one thing* worth noting. Two words at the very end.

"Please forward"

The other 147 characters are useless. Now, of course, here in the States, no one really forwards text messages. Will it work? Will this actually encourage anything?

Can I build a setlist through social media?

Social media has done a lot for me in recent months. First, my roommate and I used Flickr, Craig's List and Google Documents as we secured an apartment in Arlington while being 3,000 miles apart. Twitter and Facebook have been instrumental in getting the word out about impromptu Acoustic performances.

So, here's my newest challenge to social media. Help me determine my setlist for next Saturday.

On Saturday, June 21st, I'm bringing out the Acoustic guitar once again and hitting the stage at Ireland's Four Courts on Wilson Blvd. right near the Courthouse metro stop. When I get up there at 9:00 p.m. (or so), I want to have a rip roaring list ready to go.

So, here's what I'm asking. I'll string together about 8 songs. The two middle songs in the set will be determined by anyone who cares to tell me, comment, mock me, etc. How will you know I did it? These two songs will also go up on YouTube. Even better, they will (hopefully) be sent live to Qik.



I'm actually so excited by all of this that, for the first time ever, we are lowering the threat level to "Possibly."