Monday, November 30, 2009
Life After Newspapers
This post is a response to a question raised on the class blog.
If newspapers go away, there will still be several sources of news available. Offline commercial news sources would continue to exist, like television and radio, which have been hit less hard during the recession. They will presumably continue to have a news presence on the web.
Specialty publications like the Connecticut Law Tribune, and the Hartford Business Journal will continue to exist. Their business model appears to be different from most commercial newspapers, radio, and TV, which get most or all of their money from advertising. Specialty publications instead make much more of their money from subscriptions. The weekly Hartford Business Journal charges about $80 dollars for a 1-year subscription, which works out to almost $2 per issue. The Connecticut Law Tribune, for instance, charges $199 for online-only subscriptions, and one source charges more than twice that for print and online access, for a price of about eight dollars per issue, of this weekly publication. Some specialty publications make money by hosting conferences or events. If newspapers went away, I would occasionally look at these web sites for a limited slice of local news, that was professionally gathered and edited. I would read some of the content that was publicly available, but I would not pay the subscription fees.
Nonprofit news organizations would continue to exist, since they get their money from grants, supporting organizations, and audience donations. Connecticut radio has several examples of this sort of organization, including college radio stations like WQUN, which receives support from Quinnipiac, and streams online. NPR affiliates WNPR (Give now!) and WSHU (Pledge now!) both get much of their income from donations, and thus should survive the advertising implosion threatening newspapers. NPR would presumably survive as a national news source, because of its nonprofit approach. The Connecticut News Project would become a bigger part of my news diet. So would The New Haven Independent, or an organization like it, if it covered my part of the state. I would consider making a donation to one of these organizations, if it became my main source of news.
Local blog news would become a larger part of my news diet in a post-newspaper world, but primarily if they cover my town. A quick search turned up nothing like this for my hometown of Plainville. I might contribute to a local 'journalistic' blogger, by sending story suggestions, photos, or interesting information, but I would be less likely to voluntarily send money to a person, or to an organization that is for-profit.
I might use Wikipedia as a news source, programming it to provide me with updates when certain articles are changed, about things I am interested in. This is a poor solution, because it would be limited to things I had a previous interest in, and because Wikipedia claims it is not a source of journalism. But other sites treat it as such. Wikipedia's sister site, Wikinews might be a national news alternative, but today it seems to include a lot of material re-written from old-school media sources, especially the Voice of America (which they say is in the public domain). Perhaps I would be better served going directly to government-funded news like the VOA, BBC, and CBC.
The death of newspapers could either break aggregators like Google News and Yahoo News, or make them more useful. Yahoo's local news function relies heavily on traditional media offerings, with the Hartford local search showing most of the newspapers and TV news operations in the state, plus Connecticut Public Radio. When you localize Google News for Hartford, CT shortly before midnight, November 29, you get 14 Hartford Courant articles, 2 Meriden Record Journal articles, and one article each from the Greenwich Time, the New Britain Herald, and something called Connecticut PLUS, which copies and pastes press releases from the governor's office, and the Sound Tigers. If most of these sources die, the aggregator will have nothing local to aggregate, and they will be useless for local news. But aggregators would become more useful, if they were able to pluck reliable information from the blogosphere.
When it comes to my news tastes, my first instinct is to look for organizations, rather than individuals, in the hope that a group, whether volunteers, nonprofit, or for-profit, would build in some sort of editorial backstop, and be more likely to continue producing content, even when somebody goes on vacation for a week. Perhaps this is a personal bias, based on my status as a partial digital immigrant.
Newspaper web sites have at least one thing going for them: They are the simplest way to go to one place, and get a quick, fairly reliable summary of what is going on in an area.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Hacking for Government Openness
I wonder if there is anything the Hackathon people can do to help Litchfield, Lyme (which seems to have given up its old web address to a site that advertises Lyme disease T-shirts, remedies for dog lupus, and cream for genital warts), and several other towns that don't have web sites, and therefore don't have their agendas or other town information online.
On a related note, I notice that one of the Hackathon events focuses on Drupal, which I only have heard mentioned recently in citizen journalism contexts.
On the Other Future of News gathering, set for about 2 weeks from now: "It's tentatively scheduled for somewhere - we need a venue in Mpls-St. Paul."
It may be a bad sign that even though they don't know where they are going to meet, they DO know "There will be beer."
But as with any online journalism project, the business model is still a challenge. "How that [the beer] gets paid for is unknown at this point."
I hope two things come of this: 1) Now that I have made fun of them, they will be wildly successful, and hit on the key to the future success of online journalism. 2) They will soon post a venue, and this will all be moot.
On a related note, I notice that one of the Hackathon events focuses on Drupal, which I only have heard mentioned recently in citizen journalism contexts.
On the Other Future of News gathering, set for about 2 weeks from now: "It's tentatively scheduled for somewhere - we need a venue in Mpls-St. Paul."
It may be a bad sign that even though they don't know where they are going to meet, they DO know "There will be beer."
But as with any online journalism project, the business model is still a challenge. "How that [the beer] gets paid for is unknown at this point."
I hope two things come of this: 1) Now that I have made fun of them, they will be wildly successful, and hit on the key to the future success of online journalism. 2) They will soon post a venue, and this will all be moot.
E-Democracy Post
I would make a change to the post "E-Democracy, E-Governance and Public Net-Work." Instead of a one-way progression, I would turn it into a circle, with the public work and policy (at least theoretically) flowing back to the populace, in the form of laws they must follow and services they receive.
The online world certainly provides new ways for the governed to communicated with, and get information from the government. The ease of sending an e-mail may prompt some Congressional staffers to reduce their value, in comparison to phone calls or letters on paper, sent through the mail. In the end, the elected representative still makes the final decision.
I think Clift likes his E-Democracy Conceptual Model. He made it look like a flower!
E-Government
The most interesting part of e-government is online voting. It has already been tried, but should this change in technology prompt a change in the way decisions are made in government?
A local election in Honolulu accepted votes only online or over the phone. Here is coverage from a mostly-positive, milquetoast specialty publication, and a more critical editorial from a local newspaper.
On the federal level, the FCC (the agency best-known for regulating broadcast media, and some of the companies that carry internet data) is accepting comment on online voting, online registration and online public hearings. (Comments can indeed be filed online.)
Many organizations are already using online voting. Student government at state schools in California apparently got it right, on the fourth try. Of course, there is much more at stake in a government election.
The internet makes it easier and cheaper to gather votes of millions of people, so should more issues in government be voted on? I don't think this sort of change should be made based on cost savings offered by new technology.
A local election in Honolulu accepted votes only online or over the phone. Here is coverage from a mostly-positive, milquetoast specialty publication, and a more critical editorial from a local newspaper.
On the federal level, the FCC (the agency best-known for regulating broadcast media, and some of the companies that carry internet data) is accepting comment on online voting, online registration and online public hearings. (Comments can indeed be filed online.)
Many organizations are already using online voting. Student government at state schools in California apparently got it right, on the fourth try. Of course, there is much more at stake in a government election.
The internet makes it easier and cheaper to gather votes of millions of people, so should more issues in government be voted on? I don't think this sort of change should be made based on cost savings offered by new technology.
Product of Pain
Photo by Matt Dwyer.
Parts of it seemed dated. Do people in 2009 think Tivo is going to have a significant impact on the media landscape? Friendster...? (Although given the subsequent success of MySpace and Facebook, it was prescient of the creators to include a social networking site.)
As I listened to the video, I wondered where information used in the customized computer-generated news stories people were receiving from future theoretical information outlets was coming from, and what sort of information would be available for this product. Where are the "editors" these future people are subscribing too are getting their news, to remix for their audiences? (This idea was prescient of Twitter and simply an extension of blog followers). Presumably newspaper and other "old media" web sites have pretty much vanished by 2014 in the video scenario, so it can't come from them. As the video mentions, the information could be gathered by "everybody" (or at least the small percentage of any online community that contributes enthusiastically), plus public relations and government data released online.
Based on observation, in a traditional news sense, "everybody" would be good at reporting on things that effect large groups of people suddenly, like natural disasters or the Iranian election. "Everybody" would be good at chewing things over, like George Bush's hump, or Megan McCain's bumps. "Everybody" would also do a good job of covering things that interested everybody who is part of the top of the power law distribution. Right now, that means things like the top search terms on Twitter: The vampire movie "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," and celebusician Lady Gaga. "Everybody" would be poor at covering boring stuff, like local government. Presumably the web crawlers of the future will be able to find your town's web site, and decode the agenda or minutes for local meetings, and (possibly) determine what is interesting, but it remains to be seen if the bloggers of the future will be able or willing to fill in the human details in an accurate way.
Perhaps media training efforts like this NPR/PBS effort with American University's Center for Social Media will help "everybody" learn how to be a reporter?
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Twitter Use 5
Twitter can be used for real-time storytelling. This could be helpful for journalists or authors, who want to have an audience experience their work "live."
Perhaps play-by-play of sports events could be delivered this way. A high school student newspaper in New Jersey says they are already doing it, but I don't see any evidence of it on their Twitter feed. The Huffington Post promises live Twitter coverage of NFL games on sundays, but it seems more like a Tweeted sports talk show about the NFL, than actual information about what is happening right now in any given game.
I decided to try a couple of extremely simple examples of real-time stories, involving two Tweets each, ("BEFORE throwing out newspapers," "AFTER throwing out newspapers," "BEFORE getting a haircut," "AFTER getting a haircut.") showing what happens happens when you take out old newspapers, and when you get a haircut. Although they are not quite live, something does happen, and they are visual.
I have to admit that real time story telling is not unique to Twitter. Other social media have feeds, and even regular web sites have the ability to change or update over time... But Twitter makes it easily mobile through cell phones.
Perhaps play-by-play of sports events could be delivered this way. A high school student newspaper in New Jersey says they are already doing it, but I don't see any evidence of it on their Twitter feed. The Huffington Post promises live Twitter coverage of NFL games on sundays, but it seems more like a Tweeted sports talk show about the NFL, than actual information about what is happening right now in any given game.
I decided to try a couple of extremely simple examples of real-time stories, involving two Tweets each, ("BEFORE throwing out newspapers," "AFTER throwing out newspapers," "BEFORE getting a haircut," "AFTER getting a haircut.") showing what happens happens when you take out old newspapers, and when you get a haircut. Although they are not quite live, something does happen, and they are visual.
I have to admit that real time story telling is not unique to Twitter. Other social media have feeds, and even regular web sites have the ability to change or update over time... But Twitter makes it easily mobile through cell phones.
Before and After Haircut 2
Getting a haircut.
After.
I'm not sure After really looks any better. You could land an F-22 on my forehead. Maybe it will look more normal after I take a shower.
This is more class-related Twitter fodder. Really.
Before and After Newspaper 2
After.
This is just fodder for something to put on Twitter, to test it out.
Twitter Use 4
Twitter can be used for poetry. Artists often create artificial limits for themselves, in part as a way of focusing their creativity. Haiku can serve this purpose. Its short length translates well to Tweets.
At least one hash tag has been created for micro poetry. #micropoetry seems active.
A technological approach can be taken, like this web site, which seems to use a computer program to determine which tweets rhyme, then matches them at random. The Tweets become a raw material for other art.
Also posted outside of Twitter, Madeline40 used 140 character poems for a serious reason: To honor her late son. Maybe she chose this form because she has been a technical writer?
In the loosest definition of poetry, anything anyone writes on Twitter is a poem, whether the author thinks of it that way or not. Of course, under the loosest definition of poetry, pretty much anything written by anyone is a poem.
Of course there are people offering advice on how to write Tweets.
If you read this far, you deserve a laugh.
At least one hash tag has been created for micro poetry. #micropoetry seems active.
A technological approach can be taken, like this web site, which seems to use a computer program to determine which tweets rhyme, then matches them at random. The Tweets become a raw material for other art.
Also posted outside of Twitter, Madeline40 used 140 character poems for a serious reason: To honor her late son. Maybe she chose this form because she has been a technical writer?
In the loosest definition of poetry, anything anyone writes on Twitter is a poem, whether the author thinks of it that way or not. Of course, under the loosest definition of poetry, pretty much anything written by anyone is a poem.
Of course there are people offering advice on how to write Tweets.
If you read this far, you deserve a laugh.
Twitter Use 3
Twitter can be a reason to justify the purchase of a souped-up cell phone, and a 2-year service contract potentially costing a couple of thousand dollars.
One of its founders was focused on designing a service for taxi drivers constantly on the go, and that approach has translated to new cell phones and mobile devices with screens, quick (sometimes unlimited) internet access, keyboards, cameras, and video cameras. These phones often have scaled-down browsers, nano-size keyboards, and 2-inch or 3-inch screens, so there is a limited number of things to do on the web. Twitter's character limit on Tweets puts mobile phone users typing with their thumbs on the same footing as regular computer users bashing away at keyboards. Twitter reaches full flower when used on a cell phone.
There is also a cool factor. If you just bought an iPhone 3Gs ($699 for the 32GB model, without a contract) or an Android (the phone so powerful, its web site hung my browser), you need to have a reason to take it out of your pocket. Twitter gives you that reason.
One of its founders was focused on designing a service for taxi drivers constantly on the go, and that approach has translated to new cell phones and mobile devices with screens, quick (sometimes unlimited) internet access, keyboards, cameras, and video cameras. These phones often have scaled-down browsers, nano-size keyboards, and 2-inch or 3-inch screens, so there is a limited number of things to do on the web. Twitter's character limit on Tweets puts mobile phone users typing with their thumbs on the same footing as regular computer users bashing away at keyboards. Twitter reaches full flower when used on a cell phone.
There is also a cool factor. If you just bought an iPhone 3Gs ($699 for the 32GB model, without a contract) or an Android (the phone so powerful, its web site hung my browser), you need to have a reason to take it out of your pocket. Twitter gives you that reason.
Twitter Use 2
Twitter can be used simply to alert people of changes to new content that has been posted somewhere, in an old-media, broadcast-based model.
CBS Radio News provides an interesting example of this. This approach does not really take advantage of the interactivity of a medium like Twitter, but it does get your message out to a large number of people (5,780 right now, in CBS Radio News' case) quickly. Of course, an organization with a small or medium sized staff probably does not have enough manpower to have someone sitting on every social media site, interacting with users all day. CBS Radio News' twitter presence is somewhat odd, because instead of pushing people towards a web site, it pushes people towards an hourly radio newscast, while also providing a single headline per hour (on the weekends at least, there may be more during the week).
This example is also interesting because of the way it meshes the round-the-clock, short-burst needs of radio, with that of social media. The messages being sent on Twitter today have been written for years, perhaps for decades, and sent to radio stations that air the CBS Radio newscasts on the hour. They are used by the stations, to have some idea of what programming is coming up, so they can plan their own programming. Some of the local stations read the messages on-air, to promote the network newscast.
CBS Radio News provides an interesting example of this. This approach does not really take advantage of the interactivity of a medium like Twitter, but it does get your message out to a large number of people (5,780 right now, in CBS Radio News' case) quickly. Of course, an organization with a small or medium sized staff probably does not have enough manpower to have someone sitting on every social media site, interacting with users all day. CBS Radio News' twitter presence is somewhat odd, because instead of pushing people towards a web site, it pushes people towards an hourly radio newscast, while also providing a single headline per hour (on the weekends at least, there may be more during the week).
This example is also interesting because of the way it meshes the round-the-clock, short-burst needs of radio, with that of social media. The messages being sent on Twitter today have been written for years, perhaps for decades, and sent to radio stations that air the CBS Radio newscasts on the hour. They are used by the stations, to have some idea of what programming is coming up, so they can plan their own programming. Some of the local stations read the messages on-air, to promote the network newscast.
Twitter Use 1
As one of the five ways to use Twitter, people could use it to keep a group together while on-the-go, sending quick messages or links back and forth, for situations in which complicated, back-and-forth explanations are not necessary. According to the poster Kasey found, one of the predecessor applications to Twitter was a program that allowed taxi drivers to communicate.
An article from a marketing blog explains Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey's inspiration: "Jack was fascinated by the fact that all the users of this software – taxi drivers, limo drivers, couriers – were really just reporting what they were doing; stripping information down to its bare essence. And thus the seed for Twitter was planted."
Although Twitter might not be ideal for a weekly class, where the ideas are bigger, students are not necessarily on the road, and immediacy is less of a concern, I suggest the class use a hash tag to track our class-related comments. I sent this message to a list of class members who put their Twitter usernames on their blogs:
#Trinblogwar For students in the Trinity Blog Warriors class I suggest this hash tag. Put it in class-related Tweets. Please!Using a hash tag would make it easier for class members to follow each other, by simply clicking on the hash tag in any message, instead of trying to find the Twitter accounts of class members, and then creating a list, as I did. It might also allow members of the class who use the hash tag to more easily have a conversation, and for other people, both in the class and outside it, to follow along.
An article from a marketing blog explains Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey's inspiration: "Jack was fascinated by the fact that all the users of this software – taxi drivers, limo drivers, couriers – were really just reporting what they were doing; stripping information down to its bare essence. And thus the seed for Twitter was planted."
Although Twitter might not be ideal for a weekly class, where the ideas are bigger, students are not necessarily on the road, and immediacy is less of a concern, I suggest the class use a hash tag to track our class-related comments. I sent this message to a list of class members who put their Twitter usernames on their blogs:
#Trinblogwar For students in the Trinity Blog Warriors class I suggest this hash tag. Put it in class-related Tweets. Please!Using a hash tag would make it easier for class members to follow each other, by simply clicking on the hash tag in any message, instead of trying to find the Twitter accounts of class members, and then creating a list, as I did. It might also allow members of the class who use the hash tag to more easily have a conversation, and for other people, both in the class and outside it, to follow along.
Before and After Haircut 1
Getting a haircut.
I'm not sure After really looks any better. You could land an F-22 on my forehead. Maybe it will look more normal after I take a shower.
This is more class-related Twitter fodder. Really.
Before.
I'm not sure After really looks any better. You could land an F-22 on my forehead. Maybe it will look more normal after I take a shower.
This is more class-related Twitter fodder. Really.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Twitter Signup Liveblog 1
The first sign up screen seems to follow the Twitter approach of simplicity. It asks for relatively few pieces of information.
No thanks to e-mail updates.
I do NOT want to give my e-mail password, either. I know it is the latest and greatest in social networking, and allows you to connect to everyone on your contact list in your e-mail account, but I think that borders on spam for those other people! Not everyone in my list is really a personal friend. I have gotten what I suspected were zombie friend requests in the past this way, and I usually ignored them. The design of the Twitter sign up (and some other web sites, like Facebook), don't explain that this is an option, give you the impression this is just part of the sign-up process, and that it is something you have to do, Yuck!
No thanks to e-mail updates.
I do NOT want to give my e-mail password, either. I know it is the latest and greatest in social networking, and allows you to connect to everyone on your contact list in your e-mail account, but I think that borders on spam for those other people! Not everyone in my list is really a personal friend. I have gotten what I suspected were zombie friend requests in the past this way, and I usually ignored them. The design of the Twitter sign up (and some other web sites, like Facebook), don't explain that this is an option, give you the impression this is just part of the sign-up process, and that it is something you have to do, Yuck!
Alyssa Milano? David Pogue? Wait, why are these people here? Did they or their companies pay to be my initial pool of information providers? Here is some info about this. Here is a man making a point about the commodification of suggesting users, and promoting himself at the same time. When I refresh the web page I get a different set of people/organizations. Except Alyssa. She stuck with me. I think she likes me. He, he, he...
Wait! I refreshed again, and Alyssa was replaced by... IVANKA TRUMP!?! I'm dumping all these people.
Okay, so now I am on Twitter. I'm SquishyG.
Pre-Twitter Warmup Part 2
The operator of a hyper local web site mentioned over on the main blog checked in there. She responded to a question I posted, seeking a little behind-the-scenes info on a local journalism blog... Check it out!
My Pre-Twitter Warmup
In an echo from a topic we discussed in class a few weeks ago, the Journal Inquirer has now sued the Hartford Courant. Here is the JI article, and here is the initial Courant story.
I do have to give the JI credit for being internally awake enough to give itself the story, and not get scooped by itself (sometimes for internal reasons beyond the newsroom, that happens at media companies). I also have to give the Courant some credit for posting their story about this (at some organizations, a manager in over his head might have told the reporters to stay away from the story for legal reasons).
If this lawsuit goes through the court system without being settled, I wonder if the structures of the two newspapers will have changed so much, that they will no longer be in the newspaper business -- Or if they will even exist in a recognizable form a few years from now.
This issue so important to the JI that the organization is spending money to go to court over it. Is it because the JI is charging for access to its web site, and therefore sees that as its business model? Most newspapers don't mind if they are "properly" aggregated (the aggregator drives extra traffic to the aggregatee newspaper, giving the newspaper extra pageviews, and therefore more advertising revenue). But if the JI's plan is to sell access to its web site to paying customers, then the newspaper would have to be vigilant about controlling the use of its stories. That is difficult to do in the age of copy and paste.
I also wonder what the other newspapers that the Courant took its information from will do.
I do have to give the JI credit for being internally awake enough to give itself the story, and not get scooped by itself (sometimes for internal reasons beyond the newsroom, that happens at media companies). I also have to give the Courant some credit for posting their story about this (at some organizations, a manager in over his head might have told the reporters to stay away from the story for legal reasons).
If this lawsuit goes through the court system without being settled, I wonder if the structures of the two newspapers will have changed so much, that they will no longer be in the newspaper business -- Or if they will even exist in a recognizable form a few years from now.
This issue so important to the JI that the organization is spending money to go to court over it. Is it because the JI is charging for access to its web site, and therefore sees that as its business model? Most newspapers don't mind if they are "properly" aggregated (the aggregator drives extra traffic to the aggregatee newspaper, giving the newspaper extra pageviews, and therefore more advertising revenue). But if the JI's plan is to sell access to its web site to paying customers, then the newspaper would have to be vigilant about controlling the use of its stories. That is difficult to do in the age of copy and paste.
I also wonder what the other newspapers that the Courant took its information from will do.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Theoretical Nonprofit Online Journalism Organization
My area of focus was collaboration for my group's legacy/tech fusion site.
I suggest we recruit bloggers to address certain areas of legislation, or to focus on certain state agencies. We could structure the bloggers the same way government is structured, so in the legislative branch, one blogger might focus on a certain committee in the general assembly. In the executive branch, we could have each blogger follow a certain agency.
For example, perhaps we could recruit this blogger to write about the Department of Transporation. Or perhaps this blogger might be enticed to write about the General Assembly Judiciary Committee. The first job would be to find bloggers who are writing about topics related to state agencies or committees.
The state does put a large amount of material online, so this could be fertile ground for bloggers.
The bloggers could then continue their lives as normal, just with a little more of a focus. Our publication could then take recruited bloggers posts and link to them and/or run them on our site. (Perhaps some sort of arrangement where we run the first several paragraphs of a story on our site, then provide a link to a full post on their site?) In keeping with our "professional" ethos, we would exercise editorial control over anything appearing on our site, although I could imagine a Wikipedia model, where an instant ad-hoc committee of editors makes choices like this. If a blogger goes bad, we might have to remove their affiliation, and stop accepting material from them.
Our publication would get a much larger staff, by bringing in bloggers. This would give us better content, and hopefully more interesting stories for our audience. Our publication would have to give some of our time to manage and train the bloggers. This would involve a much greater time commitment than simply putting up comment boxes, but if we could find an efficient way to use the bloggers, I think it would be worth it.
The bloggers would get several things out of this...
If people realize our web site is a nerve center for the bloggers, our site may get good traffic, and some of that traffic can be allowed to flow to the bloggers' sites. Either way, the bloggers' work gets more attention.
Some of them may not realize that following a specific agency or committee will give them interesting, original things to write about. Beginning students in journalism classes I have taken over the years are often reluctant to get specific in their story ideas. Bloggers without training may also fail to realize that stories are about the specifics, not generalities. Working with our publication could open up this idea to them. We could provide them with some training on the basics of journalism (maybe something along these lines?), and advice from our professional reporters on how to get info and stories in Connecticut. This would probably involve some face time with the bloggers, perhaps in occasional classes, or awards?
Our publication would also give the bloggers some legitimacy, which might give them the confidence to leave home, and perhaps go to the capitol or a state agency headquarters from time-to-time... Or maybe even to venture into the world to see how the agency's work is turning out.
Affiliating with the publication might also give the bloggers an easy way to explain who they are, when the security guard at the front desk of a state agency questions their presence.
I suggest we recruit bloggers to address certain areas of legislation, or to focus on certain state agencies. We could structure the bloggers the same way government is structured, so in the legislative branch, one blogger might focus on a certain committee in the general assembly. In the executive branch, we could have each blogger follow a certain agency.
For example, perhaps we could recruit this blogger to write about the Department of Transporation. Or perhaps this blogger might be enticed to write about the General Assembly Judiciary Committee. The first job would be to find bloggers who are writing about topics related to state agencies or committees.
The state does put a large amount of material online, so this could be fertile ground for bloggers.
The bloggers could then continue their lives as normal, just with a little more of a focus. Our publication could then take recruited bloggers posts and link to them and/or run them on our site. (Perhaps some sort of arrangement where we run the first several paragraphs of a story on our site, then provide a link to a full post on their site?) In keeping with our "professional" ethos, we would exercise editorial control over anything appearing on our site, although I could imagine a Wikipedia model, where an instant ad-hoc committee of editors makes choices like this. If a blogger goes bad, we might have to remove their affiliation, and stop accepting material from them.
Our publication would get a much larger staff, by bringing in bloggers. This would give us better content, and hopefully more interesting stories for our audience. Our publication would have to give some of our time to manage and train the bloggers. This would involve a much greater time commitment than simply putting up comment boxes, but if we could find an efficient way to use the bloggers, I think it would be worth it.
The bloggers would get several things out of this...
If people realize our web site is a nerve center for the bloggers, our site may get good traffic, and some of that traffic can be allowed to flow to the bloggers' sites. Either way, the bloggers' work gets more attention.
Some of them may not realize that following a specific agency or committee will give them interesting, original things to write about. Beginning students in journalism classes I have taken over the years are often reluctant to get specific in their story ideas. Bloggers without training may also fail to realize that stories are about the specifics, not generalities. Working with our publication could open up this idea to them. We could provide them with some training on the basics of journalism (maybe something along these lines?), and advice from our professional reporters on how to get info and stories in Connecticut. This would probably involve some face time with the bloggers, perhaps in occasional classes, or awards?
Our publication would also give the bloggers some legitimacy, which might give them the confidence to leave home, and perhaps go to the capitol or a state agency headquarters from time-to-time... Or maybe even to venture into the world to see how the agency's work is turning out.
Affiliating with the publication might also give the bloggers an easy way to explain who they are, when the security guard at the front desk of a state agency questions their presence.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Where We Live on Local Web Sites and Patch.com
I notice that the panel discussion on hyper-local news outlets mentioned in the Where We Live podcast is sponsored by the Connecticut chapter of the Public Relations Society.
We have not discussed it in class, but perhaps this is what will replace journalism: Public relations.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says as of 2006, there were about 243,000 "public relations specialists" in the US. They outnumbered reporters by almost 4 to 1. And that was three years ago -- There are fewer reporters now.
Some people think this is a healthy thing. Mr. Cavanaugh points out that people are able to access more journalism today than in the past. This is correct as far as it goes. People can access articles instantly from all over the world on the web. Twenty years ago newspapers from out-of-town were hard to get. But even though it is easier to get the journalism that is produced, it is still important that the investigatory work be done so there are stories worth looking for. Some of these stories alter governments, businesses, or inform people about problems they did not know about before.
A professor I had at UConn who had worked in both journalism and public relations said the difference between a spokesperson and a reporter is that a public relations person will have to lie . A reporter gets in trouble if they do that.
The public relations person is responsible to the client. A reporter is responsible to the audience. There is a difference.
We have not discussed it in class, but perhaps this is what will replace journalism: Public relations.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says as of 2006, there were about 243,000 "public relations specialists" in the US. They outnumbered reporters by almost 4 to 1. And that was three years ago -- There are fewer reporters now.
Some people think this is a healthy thing. Mr. Cavanaugh points out that people are able to access more journalism today than in the past. This is correct as far as it goes. People can access articles instantly from all over the world on the web. Twenty years ago newspapers from out-of-town were hard to get. But even though it is easier to get the journalism that is produced, it is still important that the investigatory work be done so there are stories worth looking for. Some of these stories alter governments, businesses, or inform people about problems they did not know about before.
A professor I had at UConn who had worked in both journalism and public relations said the difference between a spokesperson and a reporter is that a public relations person will have to lie . A reporter gets in trouble if they do that.
The public relations person is responsible to the client. A reporter is responsible to the audience. There is a difference.
The Connecticut News Project
Here is an updated post on the Connecticut News Project. It looks like they will start producing material at the beginning of next year.
I notice on the Courant Alumni Refugee site, the part about being an "investigative" journalism organization is crossed out, and replaced with the word "online." I hope they really understand the difference between the two.
It seems as though online news organizations have two competing strategies to get audience:
- Create lots of stories, spending little time on each one, and hope that people will click back often during the day to see what new stories have been posted in the last few hours.
- Create fewer stories, but try to make content that people will be likely to share with their friends.
Unless you have an unlimited number of staffers, I don't think you can do both.
On the business side, it looks like in a general sense they might be trying to push newspaper-style journalism into the same category as arts organizations like symphonies, theaters, ballet troupes or opera companies that the market probably cannot support, but which many people consider good things to have around for cultural reasons, and for civic pride. However, these sorts of arts organizations rely on goodwill in the form of donations, which they might get through pledge drives (like at Connecticut Public Broadcasting), and in the form of government support or cooperation, which they will much less likely to get (most Hartford politicians spit on the ground every time they say the Courant's name). If a nonprofit journalism organization writes some stories showing a governor in a bad light, then goes to that governor's arts and culture agency seeking money, will the organization get the funds? If the journalism organization survives without the money, with that organization think twice the next time it considers posting a story showing the governor in a poor light?
There already is a nonprofit journalism organization in Hartford -- WNPR. (Saturday night, they had three photos of John Dankosky spread around their page. Huh?) Perhaps the two organizations can work together? I wonder if it would have been more efficient for this new organization to affiliate with Connecticut Public Broadcasting. I hope they don't end up competing for the same foundation dollars. Hartford has a very good symphony, but I'm not sure it could support two.
It looks like The Connecticut News Project has already grabbed some domain names.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
That book I mentioned...
...In class this past week, the one that was written by a wiki and had a lot of mentions for software and various products, and a lot of explanation-per-paragraph... It was Content Nation by John Blossom. I'm not sure if you are really the author if your book was "evolved and developed online at ContentNation.com -- literally created by the social media it examines."
Maybe I shouldn't have panned the book out of hand. It covers some of the same turf as Here Comes Everybody, with more breadth, but less depth, including more examples of how social media is used, but spending only a page or two on many of those examples.
It also shows us, (page 320) how social media will help mankind survive a devastating comet fragment impact on Earth, resulting in the deaths of billions of people.
The author is from Westport.
Maybe I shouldn't have panned the book out of hand. It covers some of the same turf as Here Comes Everybody, with more breadth, but less depth, including more examples of how social media is used, but spending only a page or two on many of those examples.
It also shows us, (page 320) how social media will help mankind survive a devastating comet fragment impact on Earth, resulting in the deaths of billions of people.
The author is from Westport.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Voting Video
My election day video is ready... The sound goes away for about 30 seconds in the middle, because I and the election worker are discussing our addresses. When the sound starts up, she notices the microphone I was carrying.
The higher-quality, downloadable Quicktime version should be here, once it finishes uploading.
Here is a lower-quality, streaming version from Facebook:
I also tried to put it on Yahoo Video, but it does not seem to want to upload there.
The higher-quality, downloadable Quicktime version should be here, once it finishes uploading.
Here is a lower-quality, streaming version from Facebook:
I also tried to put it on Yahoo Video, but it does not seem to want to upload there.
Election Day
I voted shortly before noon today in Plainville, at Our Lady of Mercy parish hall.
The poll workers were friendly, and possibly a little bored. Several campaign volunteers sat outside, saying they hoped the turnout picked up at noon, and remarking on the song from the bells of the church next door.
I made a video of it, although I did delete the audio when where one of the poll workers mentioned my home address, and my previous home address (And her previous home address also. She used to live in the same town I lived in before coming to Plainville. I said the poll workers were friendly.) Watch the video in this subsequent post.
The poll workers were also tolerant. They let me go through the voting process clutching an audio recorder and a microphone!
The poll workers were friendly, and possibly a little bored. Several campaign volunteers sat outside, saying they hoped the turnout picked up at noon, and remarking on the song from the bells of the church next door.
I made a video of it, although I did delete the audio when where one of the poll workers mentioned my home address, and my previous home address (And her previous home address also. She used to live in the same town I lived in before coming to Plainville. I said the poll workers were friendly.) Watch the video in this subsequent post.
The poll workers were also tolerant. They let me go through the voting process clutching an audio recorder and a microphone!
Monday, November 2, 2009
Here Comes Everybody Chapter 11
In social media, everyone is the gate keeper, on Page 272. "Wikis take on one of the most basic questions of politcal philosophy: Who will guard the guardians? The answer is, everyone... It takes far longer to write a fake entry, than to fix it."
Page 262: "'Buy Cheesy Poofs' is a different message from 'Join us, and we will invent Cheesy Poofs together.'" I think it was late at night, and Shiky was getting punchy. So am I. Good night.
Page 262: "'Buy Cheesy Poofs' is a different message from 'Join us, and we will invent Cheesy Poofs together.'" I think it was late at night, and Shiky was getting punchy. So am I. Good night.
Here Comes Everybody Chapter 10
The example of the many failing Meetup groups on page 236 is in line with Shirky's theme that things in the digital realm are cheaper -- including failure. "Meetup shows that with low enough barriers to participation, people are not just willing but eager to join together to try things, even if most of those things end up not working," on the next page.
Over on page 242, the emergence of open source software is a better example of the by products of new communications technology than the priest abuse scandals in 1992 verus 2002. In the priest abuse cases, there were more confounding factors. In the software world, the few isolated programmers creating shareware in the early 1990's blossomed into computer-communicating amorphous clouds of hackers creating their own operating systems, web browsers, and office program suites in the early 2000's.
From page 249, on the advantage enjoyed by open source software, in which only volunteer time, not money is invested in each program: "...In world where anyone can tr anything, even the risky stuff can be tried eventually. If a large enough populaion of users is tring things, then the happy accidents have a much higher chance of being discovered."
Over on page 242, the emergence of open source software is a better example of the by products of new communications technology than the priest abuse scandals in 1992 verus 2002. In the priest abuse cases, there were more confounding factors. In the software world, the few isolated programmers creating shareware in the early 1990's blossomed into computer-communicating amorphous clouds of hackers creating their own operating systems, web browsers, and office program suites in the early 2000's.
From page 249, on the advantage enjoyed by open source software, in which only volunteer time, not money is invested in each program: "...In world where anyone can tr anything, even the risky stuff can be tried eventually. If a large enough populaion of users is tring things, then the happy accidents have a much higher chance of being discovered."
Here Comes Everybody Chapter 9
I don't think I would use Dodgeball, the friend of a friend network phone program described on page 218 and 219. The idea of complete strangers walking up to me in a bar seems a little odd, and I would have a tough time having a conversation with someone in that situation. It also seems a little like the "Minority Report" movie situation we discussed in class last week, in which the talking advertisements know Tom Cruise's character's name.
On page 224: "The Dean Campaign had accidentally created a movement for a passionate few, rather than a vote-getting operation." Because they generated too much bonding capital on line, making people feel good about Dean, and themselves, but not moving them to action through bridging capital. ...And I thought they just ran out of money.
A side lesson might be learned from the two examples cited between pages 227 and 229: Strong, easily recognized, well-known personalities can build communities online (Joi Ito's IRC channel), or in the real world (Friends of O'Reilly Camp).
The crux of this chapter comes on page 231. Refering to Ronald Burt's The Social Origins of Good Ideas," Shirky writes: "...bridging caital puts people at greater risk of having good ideas than do any individual traits." The study found that people with access to information from disparate parts of their company had better ideas (as received by their bosses). This makes sense, although I'm not sure if that means companies should get their workers Facebooking with each other. In the real world, this effect might also come into play, but sometimes in less tangible ways. If you have a social connection with someone, they might suggest a piece of music you never heard of, but discover you like, or if you befriend someone very different online, you might get a viewpoint of the world you otherwise would never have exposure to. These are good things in a more quiet way.
On page 224: "The Dean Campaign had accidentally created a movement for a passionate few, rather than a vote-getting operation." Because they generated too much bonding capital on line, making people feel good about Dean, and themselves, but not moving them to action through bridging capital. ...And I thought they just ran out of money.
A side lesson might be learned from the two examples cited between pages 227 and 229: Strong, easily recognized, well-known personalities can build communities online (Joi Ito's IRC channel), or in the real world (Friends of O'Reilly Camp).
The crux of this chapter comes on page 231. Refering to Ronald Burt's The Social Origins of Good Ideas," Shirky writes: "...bridging caital puts people at greater risk of having good ideas than do any individual traits." The study found that people with access to information from disparate parts of their company had better ideas (as received by their bosses). This makes sense, although I'm not sure if that means companies should get their workers Facebooking with each other. In the real world, this effect might also come into play, but sometimes in less tangible ways. If you have a social connection with someone, they might suggest a piece of music you never heard of, but discover you like, or if you befriend someone very different online, you might get a viewpoint of the world you otherwise would never have exposure to. These are good things in a more quiet way.
Here Comes Everybody Chapter 8
Page 198: Reduced transaction costs strike again! "Because they are both internally organized and externally supported, Presbyterians suffer less than Pagans from transactino costs, who have no cuturally normal place and time to meet and no ready way to broadcast their interests without censure." Basically, small, odd groups like Pagans benefit more from social media because it was more difficult for them to get together in the analog world.
Something on page 200 strikes me as very profound: "...It's easier to like people who are odd in the same ways you are odd."
On the next page, I was pleasantly surprised to find the web can be used to fight the isolating effect or suburban sprawl, by bringing together stay at home moms on Meetup.com.
On page 204, I wonder how many of the "Pro-Ana" girls were really girls at all, or if they were really in favor of anorexia. Some of them might have been examples of rather nasty troll behavior. A similarly evil example cropped up in the Jasper Howard homicide investigation, when police said a UConn student with no real connection to the case posted empty threats against people who talked to the police. The police did not say this, but presumably, he was a troll.
I'm not comfortable with page 211:
Something on page 200 strikes me as very profound: "...It's easier to like people who are odd in the same ways you are odd."
On the next page, I was pleasantly surprised to find the web can be used to fight the isolating effect or suburban sprawl, by bringing together stay at home moms on Meetup.com.
On page 204, I wonder how many of the "Pro-Ana" girls were really girls at all, or if they were really in favor of anorexia. Some of them might have been examples of rather nasty troll behavior. A similarly evil example cropped up in the Jasper Howard homicide investigation, when police said a UConn student with no real connection to the case posted empty threats against people who talked to the police. The police did not say this, but presumably, he was a troll.
I'm not comfortable with page 211:
When it is hard to form groups, both potentially good and bad groups are prevented from forming; when it becomes simple to forum groups, we get both good and bad ones. This is going to force society to shift from simply preventing groups from forming, to actively deciding which existing ones to try to oppose, a shift that parallels the publish-then-filter pattern generally.In most cases, don't think this is society's job. The operators of digital services that host bad groups may have the legal right to censor or discourage them, but people do have a first amendment right to peaceably assemble, and I think that protection extends to the online world. I think we should be reluctant to limit that right.
Here Comes Everybody Chapter 7
Here is the nub of the chapter, on page 163: "Shared awareness allows otherwise uncoordinated groups to begin to work together more quickly and effectively."
Anti-government protesters use this in totalitarian regimes, but as I recall in Iran, some of the government's supporters also used social media, to get out their side of why the demonstrators had to be put down.
I'm not sure I believe part of page 168: "Now the organization of group effort can be invisible, but the results can be immediately visible." If a social networker is trying to organize a lot of people, he or she is going to send a lot of messages. I would assume a smart secret policeman could probably infiltrate such a loose online community. Although Shirky is correct to point out that flash mobs make protests impossible to stop, and video and photo technology makes protests easier to document, I suspect a wise regime would simply wait until the protest was over, to met out punishment in ways that make for poor pictures. A demonstrator's father getting fired from his job would probably not make for a good picture for the west, but could be a very effective way of preventing future demonstrations. Let's hope the regimes are less ruthless than I am...
Meanwhile, in an update to the passenger bill of rights anecdote, the bill is still in a holding pattern. (Sorry.) Here is a different take on that topic, from a the Consumer Travel Alliance, which seems to oppose part of the passenger's bill of rights.
I see the return of a theme from earlier chapters on page 181. "The old model for coordinating group action required convincing people who care a little to care more, so that they would be roused to act. What Hanni and Streeting [activists on plane waits and bank treatment of college students, respectively] did instead was to lower the hurdles to doing something in the first place, so that people who cared a little could participate a little, while being effective in the aggregate." This strikes me as similar to Wikipedia, because no one would have time to write an encyclopedia for free, all by themselves, but when people come together digitally, they can each contribute the limited amount of spare time they can afford. For most people that is one edit, for a few, it is a full-fledged hobby.
Anti-government protesters use this in totalitarian regimes, but as I recall in Iran, some of the government's supporters also used social media, to get out their side of why the demonstrators had to be put down.
I'm not sure I believe part of page 168: "Now the organization of group effort can be invisible, but the results can be immediately visible." If a social networker is trying to organize a lot of people, he or she is going to send a lot of messages. I would assume a smart secret policeman could probably infiltrate such a loose online community. Although Shirky is correct to point out that flash mobs make protests impossible to stop, and video and photo technology makes protests easier to document, I suspect a wise regime would simply wait until the protest was over, to met out punishment in ways that make for poor pictures. A demonstrator's father getting fired from his job would probably not make for a good picture for the west, but could be a very effective way of preventing future demonstrations. Let's hope the regimes are less ruthless than I am...
Meanwhile, in an update to the passenger bill of rights anecdote, the bill is still in a holding pattern. (Sorry.) Here is a different take on that topic, from a the Consumer Travel Alliance, which seems to oppose part of the passenger's bill of rights.
I see the return of a theme from earlier chapters on page 181. "The old model for coordinating group action required convincing people who care a little to care more, so that they would be roused to act. What Hanni and Streeting [activists on plane waits and bank treatment of college students, respectively] did instead was to lower the hurdles to doing something in the first place, so that people who cared a little could participate a little, while being effective in the aggregate." This strikes me as similar to Wikipedia, because no one would have time to write an encyclopedia for free, all by themselves, but when people come together digitally, they can each contribute the limited amount of spare time they can afford. For most people that is one edit, for a few, it is a full-fledged hobby.
Here Comes Everybody Chapter 6
Here is where things stand for Voices of the faithful, according to Boston Globe article from early July, 2009 and late July, 2009. If the group gained about 25,000 members in a few months of 2002, and this year it has the names of about 35,000 in its database, I think it is safe to say the group has cooled off a little. Despite financial problems, it does still exist, which is an accomplishment in itself, when its membership is made up of people in the Catholic Church, and the church doesn't like Voices of the Faithful. If Voices of the faithful does have to give up its offices at some point, that could be seen as a more pure test of its ability to use social media.
On Page 146, Shirky leaves out some other causes for expanded outrage at the Goeghan case: Between 1992 and 2002, there had been a steady drumbeat of allegations, settled lawsuits, and criminal charges, involving allegations of abuse by priests. One case can be an aberration, but I know some Catholics who got upset when it happened repeatedly, and when it appeared higher-ups in the church transfered the priests, rather than going to the police with their suspicions.
On page 153, I wonder if anyone would have found out about the documents description of the Boston church's knowledge of Goeghan's actions, if the Globe had not pursued the documents, possibly hiring legal representation, and spent the time to read through them. A similar cache of church abuse documents from the Bridgeport Diocese has been kept sealed since approximately the time of the Globe's 2002 article, while the church appealed to the state Supreme Court twice, and the US Supreme Court once. Very few bloggers could afford to take a case to the US Supreme Court, and most would have given up years ago.
On Page 146, Shirky leaves out some other causes for expanded outrage at the Goeghan case: Between 1992 and 2002, there had been a steady drumbeat of allegations, settled lawsuits, and criminal charges, involving allegations of abuse by priests. One case can be an aberration, but I know some Catholics who got upset when it happened repeatedly, and when it appeared higher-ups in the church transfered the priests, rather than going to the police with their suspicions.
On page 153, I wonder if anyone would have found out about the documents description of the Boston church's knowledge of Goeghan's actions, if the Globe had not pursued the documents, possibly hiring legal representation, and spent the time to read through them. A similar cache of church abuse documents from the Bridgeport Diocese has been kept sealed since approximately the time of the Globe's 2002 article, while the church appealed to the state Supreme Court twice, and the US Supreme Court once. Very few bloggers could afford to take a case to the US Supreme Court, and most would have given up years ago.
On page 156, Shirky writes "Some new and stable arrangement will eventually be found, as it was after martin Luther, but whatever it is, the one option that it won't include is a return to the days of a subdivided and disorganized laity." But social media might contribute a form of division in this regard. Many of the people who go to mass on a weekly basis in many Catholic churches are older than the average person, and therefore less likely than average to have e-mail, a Facebook account, or access to a range of digital communications technologies. A group like Voices of the Faithful could be divided between those who have computers and internet access, and those who do not. At the least, it would have to replicate everything it does online in newsletters, for potential members who are not online. Shirky mentions that the Catholic Church has dealt with change before, like the invention of print, and a bible that the laity could read themselves. Voices of the Faithful may have a small presence on Facebook, but the church is adapting to social media as well. Locally, the Archdiocese of Hartford is on Facebook, too.
Here Comes Everybody Chapter 5
Yea! Wikipedia is one of the best examples of the collaborative creation made possible in the wired world, that Shirky is writing about. I think wikis in general are a step towards something else big, but I don't know what it is. I hope Wikipedia is not the only, or the highest example of this sort of distributed production. It seems nonprofit or shared ownership might work as a structure for these organizations, because big chunks of cash might be less necessary from a single owner or investors, to get an operation off the ground. A smaller amount of money, and a larger amount of time might suffice, if the organization's resource is its workers or volunteers, time, and if its product in the digital fruit of that time.
On page 118, I think Shirky's initial description of Wikipedia gives the impression that it is a little less structured than it really is. The hierarchy from bottom to top includes: unregistered users, registered users/editors, administrators, bureaucrats, stewards, and a board of trustees. Shirky does address some of the organizational structure of Wikipedia later in the chapter.
I wonder if the constant, ongoing process described on page 119 is a common trait of collaborative online efforts. Certainly MySpace or Flickr will never be "finished." Many open source software projects are updated to at least keep the software working with new versions of operating systems, unless too few people take part in the project, and it becomes abandoned. They don't really end. They are like a shark that must keep swimming, (or recruiting new volunteers) to stay alive.
This is an interesting observation on the few users who contribute the majority of the images on Flickr from page 124:
Ahem, a_hot_mess...? But seriously, I wonder if there are any common traits shared by the high producers in social media, and the high income earners in the real world? Perhaps they are both likely to be leaders in their communities (whether online or physical)?
I also like Shirky's description of Wikipedia as a Shinto shrine, which is constantly rebuilt, in a slightly different place, on a regular basis. Perhaps the analogy breaks down on content, however: The monks use the same plan, but Wikipedia's articles constantly change, and presumably drift over time. Shirky is right to say that vandals could quickly destroy either one.
On page 118, I think Shirky's initial description of Wikipedia gives the impression that it is a little less structured than it really is. The hierarchy from bottom to top includes: unregistered users, registered users/editors, administrators, bureaucrats, stewards, and a board of trustees. Shirky does address some of the organizational structure of Wikipedia later in the chapter.
I wonder if the constant, ongoing process described on page 119 is a common trait of collaborative online efforts. Certainly MySpace or Flickr will never be "finished." Many open source software projects are updated to at least keep the software working with new versions of operating systems, unless too few people take part in the project, and it becomes abandoned. They don't really end. They are like a shark that must keep swimming, (or recruiting new volunteers) to stay alive.
This is an interesting observation on the few users who contribute the majority of the images on Flickr from page 124:
This pattern is general to social media: on mailing lists with more than a couple of dozen participants, the most active writer is generally much more active than the person in the number-two slot, and far more active than the average. The longest conversation goes on much longer than the second-longest one, and much longer than average, and so on.
Ahem, a_hot_mess...? But seriously, I wonder if there are any common traits shared by the high producers in social media, and the high income earners in the real world? Perhaps they are both likely to be leaders in their communities (whether online or physical)?
I also like Shirky's description of Wikipedia as a Shinto shrine, which is constantly rebuilt, in a slightly different place, on a regular basis. Perhaps the analogy breaks down on content, however: The monks use the same plan, but Wikipedia's articles constantly change, and presumably drift over time. Shirky is right to say that vandals could quickly destroy either one.
Here Comes Everybody Chapter 4
There is a useful definition on page 83: "User-generated content is a group phenomenon, and an amateur one. When people talk bout user-generated content, they are describing the ways that users create and share media with one another, with no professionals anywhere in sight."
I had not thought about the target audience discussed on page 85, but Shirkey is correct. Much of the blogging and posting done on the internet, is only intended for a few friends. I wonder if the act of chatting with a friend could be changed by introducing a financial incentive, through some of the new models of advertising being pursued by companies like Google (ads to "monetize" small-audience blogs) and FaceBook (ads that tell you what products your "friends" are followers or fans of, as a form of personal endorsement).
On page 87, Shirkey mentions that the line between one-way broadcasting, and one-on-one communication tools were clear in the past. "Someone writing you a letter might say 'I love you', and someone on TV might say 'I love you', but you would have no trouble understanding which of those messages was really addressed to you." I wonder if social advertising on Facebook could be one of the ways those lines get blurred further?
I was bored by the part about fame. I don't care that Oprah can't answer all her e-mail.
Over on page 105:
Life teaches us that motivations other than getting paid aren't enough to add up to serious work. And now we have to unlearn that lesson, because it is less true with each passing year. People now have access to a myriad of tools that let them share writing images, video -- any form of expressive content in fact -- and use that sharing as an anchor for community and cooperation.But does this apply primarily to things that can be transmitted digitally? Page 107:
All businesses are media businesses, because whatever else they do, all businesses rely on the managing of information for two audiences -- employees and the world. The increase in the power of both individuals and groups, outside traditional organized structures, is unprecedented. Many institutions we rely on today will not survive this change without significant alteration, and the more an institution or industry relies on information as its core product, the greater and more complete the change will be.I think Shirkey may be getting a little over-excited here. I hope he makes some predictions about what types of new non-media organizations might be made practical, because the costs of organizing are reduced. Among existing organizations, if we look at the small bakery down the street from where I live, social media could certainly help them advertise their recent opening, and they (sort of) have a Facebook page, they tweeted once two months ago, and they have a bare-bones MySpace page. This might replace some of the old mass-media advertising they might have done in the past, and it might give them a new way to interact with some of their customers, or other restaurants like Barcelona, but I suspect social media has not fundamentally changed the way they do business.
Even for larger companies, social media is prompting big changes in how they manage their public relations, and forcing their PR and customer research units to interact more on social media. Certainly the information gained this way could prompt changes in advertising, or in the product itself, and perhaps the information gleaned will be better than previously, but so far I see this as a big change only for PR and customer research, not for whole companies.
Here Comes Everybody Chapter 3
Okay, I have minor bones to pick on pages 56 and 57. I think Shirkey is wrong to think that newspapers missed the internet. I interned at a local newspaper in the late 1990's, and there was a lot of discussion of the internet, including the loss of classified revenue, and a good deal of action, like posting existing content online, which has proven popular. I can even recall some discussion of the importance of forming online communities... I think most newspapers did notice the internet, I'm just not sure if they have responded to it correctly. I suspect most of them have been distracted by the pressing needs of creating a print newspaper (which generates most of their money), rather than spending all of their time on digital products (which generate very little money). A newspaper that had really shifted all of its effort to its web site, and away from its printed product tens years ago, probably would have gone out of business, or at least been forced to lay off most of its staff. That may still happen, but at least it wasn't self-inflicted.
The other minor bone is the assumption that journalists' norms are enforced by their peers. In any mass media, the norms are ultimately enforced by the audience: If the readers/viewers/listeners/users don't like what you are producing, they will spend their time somewhere else.
And while I am picking bones, on page 58, I disagree with Shirkey's assumption that librarians are obsolete. It is important to remember that libraries do not just provide information. They provide FREE information. The internet may be a more efficient way to access data, but if you cannot afford internet service and a computer, or if you don't know how to use a computer, a library can be very useful for granting this access. Even online, I think there is a place for information experts, who can point you in the right direction, as librarians do with books.
The transportation issues I mentioned in my post for Chapter 2 come up again on page 59.
Trent Lott makes me think of Erin Andrews. I'm sure many people make this connection. Really. The Erin Andrews nude hotel room video spread virally, on the internet. The old fashioned, mass media did not really spread the story, the men of America did, by watching the video endlessly, and by searching for it so obsessively that hackers started using it as bait to transmit viruses. That is why some tech writers started mentioning it, and the story bubbled through into the mass media a few days later.
Before social media, the video could not have been distributed so widely, so quickly, and the video itself would have been much less likely to show up in any traditional media, like TV or newspapers.
Page 77 is obvious but true: "Radio, television, and traditional phones all rely on a handful of commercial firms owning expensive hardware..." And the number of people who can have these licenses are limited by the government, at least partly for technological reasons. "An individual with a camera or a keyboard is now a non-profit of one, and self-publishing is the normal case." Hmmm. So journalists will become the scribes of the twenty-first century? For my own sake, I rather hope not.
The other minor bone is the assumption that journalists' norms are enforced by their peers. In any mass media, the norms are ultimately enforced by the audience: If the readers/viewers/listeners/users don't like what you are producing, they will spend their time somewhere else.
And while I am picking bones, on page 58, I disagree with Shirkey's assumption that librarians are obsolete. It is important to remember that libraries do not just provide information. They provide FREE information. The internet may be a more efficient way to access data, but if you cannot afford internet service and a computer, or if you don't know how to use a computer, a library can be very useful for granting this access. Even online, I think there is a place for information experts, who can point you in the right direction, as librarians do with books.
The transportation issues I mentioned in my post for Chapter 2 come up again on page 59.
Trent Lott makes me think of Erin Andrews. I'm sure many people make this connection. Really. The Erin Andrews nude hotel room video spread virally, on the internet. The old fashioned, mass media did not really spread the story, the men of America did, by watching the video endlessly, and by searching for it so obsessively that hackers started using it as bait to transmit viruses. That is why some tech writers started mentioning it, and the story bubbled through into the mass media a few days later.
Before social media, the video could not have been distributed so widely, so quickly, and the video itself would have been much less likely to show up in any traditional media, like TV or newspapers.
Page 77 is obvious but true: "Radio, television, and traditional phones all rely on a handful of commercial firms owning expensive hardware..." And the number of people who can have these licenses are limited by the government, at least partly for technological reasons. "An individual with a camera or a keyboard is now a non-profit of one, and self-publishing is the normal case." Hmmm. So journalists will become the scribes of the twenty-first century? For my own sake, I rather hope not.
Here Comes Everybody Chapter 2
There is an important caveat on page 30 to the decentralized, web-based organizations that Shirkey seems so excited about: "The more people are involved in a given task, the more potential agreements need to be negotiated to do anything, and the greater the transaction costs..."
For an example of this, see the revision history of the Wikipedia article on abortion...
Page 31 also includes a big idea on the institutional dilemma:
Does Page 44 indicate Shirkey thinks social media makes larger companies possible? "When an organization grows very large, it reaches the limit implicit in Coase's [management] theory; at some point an institution simmply cannot grow anymore and still remain functional, because the cost of managing the business will destroy any profit margin." Shirkey thinks social media reduces the cost of organizing a group... He is excited about decentralized, volunteer driven efforts, but maybe the internet is also making bigger companies possible?
I am also struck that many of Shirkey's examples cite the collection or use of information. Information-based products may work well in an internet context becasue they not only benefit from reduced management overhead, but they also can be created and delivered digitally. Not only management costs fall, but transportation and production costs can drop. If you already have the necessary equipment, it is cheaper to e-mail a photo than to print it and mail it. The cost reductions that Shirkey describes may be specific to media products (photos, music, video, text), because it can be translated into 1's and 0's. This would NOT apply to other types of production. You still can't send someone a blender over the internet.
I think page 53 is interesting because it implies what might be coming in the future. Could social media bring about new types of cooperative organizations? More food coops or energy coops? Or other types of businesses where the consumers are the owners, and vote on how the business is run, and what the staff does? Perhaps organizations that don't need to be housed in a specialized facility like a factory or a greenhouse could do away with a central location, and rely more on telecommuting?
For an example of this, see the revision history of the Wikipedia article on abortion...
Page 31 also includes a big idea on the institutional dilemma:
Because the minimum costs of being an organization in the first place are relatively high, certain activities may have some value, but not enough to make them worth pursuing in any organized way. New social tools are altering this equation by lowering the costs of coordingating group action. The easiest place to see this change is in actiities that are too difficult to be pursued with traditional management, but thta have become possible with new forms of coordination.The Flickr/Coney Island/Mermaid Parade example leaves out a cost that Flickr DID have to incur: The web site had to promote itself broadly, so that people in the world in general would be aware of it. This promotion may be able to be done at least partly through social media, as Flickr's creators once said, but it would cost time and some money to accomplish. People have to know a tool exists to use it... Or to choose between Flickr and Photobucket.
Does Page 44 indicate Shirkey thinks social media makes larger companies possible? "When an organization grows very large, it reaches the limit implicit in Coase's [management] theory; at some point an institution simmply cannot grow anymore and still remain functional, because the cost of managing the business will destroy any profit margin." Shirkey thinks social media reduces the cost of organizing a group... He is excited about decentralized, volunteer driven efforts, but maybe the internet is also making bigger companies possible?
I am also struck that many of Shirkey's examples cite the collection or use of information. Information-based products may work well in an internet context becasue they not only benefit from reduced management overhead, but they also can be created and delivered digitally. Not only management costs fall, but transportation and production costs can drop. If you already have the necessary equipment, it is cheaper to e-mail a photo than to print it and mail it. The cost reductions that Shirkey describes may be specific to media products (photos, music, video, text), because it can be translated into 1's and 0's. This would NOT apply to other types of production. You still can't send someone a blender over the internet.
I think page 53 is interesting because it implies what might be coming in the future. Could social media bring about new types of cooperative organizations? More food coops or energy coops? Or other types of businesses where the consumers are the owners, and vote on how the business is run, and what the staff does? Perhaps organizations that don't need to be housed in a specialized facility like a factory or a greenhouse could do away with a central location, and rely more on telecommuting?
Here Comes Everybody Chapter 1
I am somewhat troubled by the racial aspects of the missing phone anecdote. Would the phone story have gotten as much attention online if the "villain" wasn't Latino? Could Evan's actions be interpreted as those of an online vigilante? Could the story be seen as an example of someone with more money and status, using their resources to beat up a person with less money and status? The internet is not a level playing field. It takes some disposable income to get online regularly. When someone is the victim of a crime, they tend to want a severe penalty for the perpetrator, even if the crime was minor. Was prompting online vitriol and people driving by the teenager's house an example of that?
A New York Times article does not really take the girl's side, but it does at least include comments from Sasha's mother.
This part on Page 21, referring to social media, seems important:
A New York Times article does not really take the girl's side, but it does at least include comments from Sasha's mother.
This part on Page 21, referring to social media, seems important:
By making it easier for groups to self-assemble and for individuals to contribute to group effort without requiring formal management (and its attendant overhead), these tools have radically altered the old limits on the size sophistication, and scope of unsupervised effort (the limits that created the institutional dilema in the first place)....Therefore allowing things like Wikipedia, or the whole idea of wikis (pieces of text that can be edited by anyone), which is one of the two really new, paradigm changing ideas that we have discussed in this class. (The other is Google's discovery of a new forum for advertising: Acting as a go-between to bring together advertisers, and bloggers who individually will never have enough readers to support a sales person.)
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