socialmedia

Twitter: breaking news before there is anything to officially break

November 1, 2010 by Einar Thorsen 1 Comment

Bill Simmons:

Twitter, which exacerbates the demands of immediacy, blurs the line between reporting and postulating, and forces writers to chase too many bum steers. With every media company unabashedly playing the "We Had It First!" game, reporters' salary and credibility hinges directly on how many stories they break. That entices reporters to become enslaved to certain sources (almost always agents or general managers), push transparent agendas (almost always from those same agents or GMs) and "break" news before there's anything to officially break. It also swings the source/reporter dynamic heavily toward the source. Take care of me and I will take care of you.

From great article on the accidental Tweet…

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So just who does get social media?

October 25, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

Matthew Eltringham:

In the last decade or more, the pressure of diminishing resources and increasing output has taken away the opportunity for journalists to do their job properly: to get out of the office and talk to real people about real things.

But the social web has given us a second chance to reconnect with people – albeit in a virtual way – and we should grab hold of that opportunity with both hands. Collaborative journalism, networked journalism, distributed journalism, mutualised journalism – call it what you will, this is the real prize that social media offers media organisations.

We should grab it with both hands, because if we don't the audience will grab it for themselves.

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Twitter, Facebook, and social activism

October 1, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

Malcolm Gladwell:

The evangelists of social media don’t understand this distinction; they seem to believe that a Facebook friend is the same as a real friend and that signing up for a donor registry in Silicon Valley today is activism in the same sense as sitting at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro in 1960. “Social networks are particularly effective at increasing motivation,” Aaker and Smith write. But that’s not true. Social networks are effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires. […] In other words, Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice. We are a long way from the lunch counters of Greensboro.

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Can a Platform Succeed Without a Popular Service?

September 28, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

Adam DuVander:

Twitter and Facebook are often lauded as shining examples of what a platform does for your business. And for good reason. They have very successful developer programs. But they are also extremely popular services on their own. A developer may not build where there is not the foundation of a loyal user base. But even that has exceptions.

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The Future of Social Media in Journalism

September 14, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

Vadim Lavrusik:

all media as we know it today will become social, and feature a social component to one extent or another. […]

But more importantly, these social tools are inspiring readers to become citizen journalists by enabling them to easily publish and share information on a greater scale. The future journalist will be more embedded with the community than ever, and news outlets will build their newsrooms to focus on utilizing the community and enabling its members to be enrolled as correspondents. Bloggers will no longer be just bloggers, but be relied upon as more credible sources.

Excellent overview of:
– Collaborative Reporting
– Journalists as Community Managers
– The Social Beat
– Social Stories
– Online Curation for a “Time-Poor Audience”
– The Social Network as the New Editor
– Beyond Twitter & Facebook
– Monetizing Social
– A Social Newsroom and the Personal Brand
– A Mobile Social Experience

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