With that out of the way … what if retweets are an infringement of US copyright law?

That fascinating prospect was raised by attorney Glenn Manishin (@GlennM) during the “Public Policy & Law” panel discussion at last week’s 140 Conference in Los Angeles.

The argument that Glenn laid out for the potential illegality of the retweet went something like this:

1) In its official terms of service, Twitter says users own and “retain rights” to their content. (Users also grant Twitter royalty-free rights to distribute that content)

2) If users own their content, then that content–as long as it’s an original expression and not simply a fact or idea–can be copyrighted.

3) A retweet is often a verbatim reproduction, or close to 100% in “amount and substantiality” of the original work, meaning it may not fall within the acceptable boundaries of the “fair use” doctrine.

Result = retweets of original works are copyright violations?

I grabbed Glenn at the end of the 140 Conference for a quick video interview, and asked him to explain his  line of reasoning in further detail.

(RSS readers: You may need to click through to the original blog post to see the embedded video below).

Twitter is set to incorporate the retweet into its standard functionality. Any chance the company should take one last pause and rethink that decision?

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* Adam Cohen has a nice commentary for Ad Age: “Big pharma and Google Sidewiki: a sink or swim situation?” Pharmaceutical companies are rightly concerned that Sidewiki comments on their own sites may land them in regulatory hot water.

* I also spoke with Social Media Explorer principal Jason Falls and Altimeter Group partner Jeremiah Owyang about Sidewiki at last week’s BlogWorld & New Media Expo. Here are their takes:

Jason Falls on Google Sidewiki’s impact on brands and marketers

Jeremiah Owyang on the ‘disruptive’ nature of Sidewiki

(Disclosure: My employer, LiveWorld, is a consulting client of Jeremiah’s.)

RSS readers: You may need to click through to the original blog post to see the videos.

Much ado about … ?

For all the buzz about Sidewiki, the real impact will only be felt if more users start to adopt it. Jeremiah says as much in the video above. And at least until Google Chrome incorporates the tool into its browser, using Sidewiki will always require a manual download/update of the Google Toolbar (not necessarily difficult, but still a barrier to entry).

Plus, the experience of using Sidewiki itself will need to become something beyond just “digital grafiti.” We’re not quite there yet–but I suspect this is a long march we’re headed for.

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Instant social

* Sidewiki enables any page on the web to become social–from Chris Brogan’s tweet stream to the Walmart homepage or a Seth Godin blog post. Once users download and install Sidewiki (it’s free, and is an add-on to the Google Toolbar in Firefox and Internet Explorer, with Google Chrome support still to come), they can start commenting away in a window that appears to the left of the page.

[click to enlarge image below]

* In addition to making their own comments, Sidewiki users can also click “yes,” “no,” or “report abuse” to indicate a particular comment’s usefulness/legitimacy.

* For easy sharing and spreading across the social web, each comment also has a unique URL and buttons for posting to Twitter and Facebook.

* Sidewiki also continues the trend of distributed and fragmented online social conversations. From blog posts and their associated comment threads to Twitter to Facebook to FriendFeed and now to Sidewiki, users continue to take their reactions and commentary anywhere across the social web.

No control for brands; more monitoring needed

* Brands and site publishers have no say over the content that appears in Sidewikis alongside their web pages. That means no moderation controls; no options to instantly kill spam, malicious, or obviously off-topic comments; and no obvious way to reply to a particular comment. There’s also no notification system to alert publishers to new Sidewiki posts on their sites. Jeff Jarvis says this is all a dangerous receipe.

* Brands and content creators are ultimately at the mercy of a “Google algorithm,” which determines the order of the comments and even whether they appear at all. According to Danny Sullivan, user voting and flagging, a “user’s reputation,” and “a user’s history” are all a part of the algorithm.

* As some measure of good news (though this could be debated), all Sidewiki entries are tied to specific Google users and their Google profiles, so anonymous comments are not allowed.

* Brands that aren’t doing so already should install Sidewiki and begin regular monitoring of Sidewikis next to key landing pages and new social-media content on their sites. Companies should also claim their site(s) through Google Webmaster Central, giving them the right to post or edit the comment that appears atop the Sidewiki.

Digital litter?

* Absent any real control for content publishers, Sidewiki’s initial success will depend on the robustness of its algorithm and users’ trust of the product. That will require a level of online community building and engagement that John Battelle says isn’t part of Google’s MO.

* If early activity to corporate pages is any indication, the devolution of Sidewiki pages into a digital wasteland is certainly possible (hope I’m wrong here). Two of the first three Sidewiki comments to the Dell homepage, for example, are clearly spam–and yet they remain. Only a welcome message to commenters from Dell’s Laura Thomas is legit.

[click to enlarge image below]

What about SEO?

* Sidewiki is all about Google’s algorithm, remember, so the integration of Sidewiki content into search is inevitable, and brands–both corporate and personal–should keep a watchful eye on Sidewiki’s impact to their search-engine results.

Don’t forget advertising …

Update: Google’s contextual ads aren’t part of Sidewikis … yet, but you can bet they’ll be integrated into the product sooner rather than later. Here’s Jason Falls’ take on what’s coming:

[R]emember what Google does best … serves up relevant advertising in search results. I would expect your competitors will have the opportunity to place their ads on your Sidewiki soon, too. (Of course, you would be able to place yours on theirs, too.)

The final (initial) verdict?

Decidedly mixed, in my view. The continued power shift to consumers on websites is an inevitable byproduct of Sidewiki, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But the threat of threat of unmanageable comment abuse on high-profile web pages also looms large. Let’s file this under the “be diligent and vigilant” category.

Sidewiki is open for business on BryanPerson.com

Not that you need my permission, of course, but you can comment on Sidewikis throughout this site at any time!

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The backstory

Rob, who is the social media editor at the Austin American-Statesman, executed a terrific “Day in the Sun” storystream for the paper two weeks ago using Posterous, a blogging platform that allows multiple contributors to post photos/text/videos to a single stream using a single e-mail address.

In total, readers submitted 70 photos, all of which were syndicated out to a highly-trafficked Statesman.com photo gallery and some of which also wound up in the print edition.

It was a creative and thoughtful project–one of many that Rob is hatching for the Statesman these days–and so I decided to copy it!

SMB Houston storystream

The project: To create a storystream–primarily with photos–of the Houston Social Media Breakfast on Friday, September 11.

The platform: An SMB Houston Posterous blog, which I created in about two minutes.

The plan: Ask breakfast attendees to send in photos they captured during the breakfast to post@SMBHouston.Posterous.com (an unwieldy address, but it was the default setting from Posterous). I would then manually approve all submissions (I chose to keep moderation on for testing purposes, and also in case a devious Twitter spammer got wind of the plan).

The results: 24 photos were submitted and posted to the blog from five contributors, and we generated a few hundred page views.

Where’s storystreaming headed?

Our crowdsourcing work in Houston was a mere first step toward what “storystreaming” can be. Here’s Daniel Honigman’s more lofty vision:

A storystream helps bring to light, through a chronological narrative, a particular issue, process or concept over a more significant period of time than an eventstream usually covers. Used journalistically, it turns into a collaborative stream of consciousness that tells a story.

So how might I improve and beef up the storystreaming efforts at a future Social Media Breakfast or social media conference or event?

• Get out the word in advance
• Use a shorter or easier-to-remember e-mail address
• Assign an editor or moderator to review and approve submissions more quickly
• Mix in videos and text reviews
• Promote our content online during the event through Twitter

Still, this was a good start, and I’m thankful to Rob for the inspiration.

Disclosure: Rob Quigley was the moderator of a panel for the most recent Austin Social Media Breakfast, which the American-Statesman also hosted.

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1) Third Tuesday Ottawa: On Monday night (yes, I know it says Third Tuesday … but close enough!), author Shel Israel will speak about his new book, Twitterville. I did a quick flip-through at my local Barnes & Noble earlier this week, and the book is chock-full of case studies; I can’t wait to hear Shel share a few of them.

2) Mark Schumann speaks to IABC Ottawa: On Tuesday evening, the newish global chair of IABC will address  “the fundamental shift in communication power” brought about by social media.

3) Social Media Breakfast Ottawa: Tara Hunt, who recently moved back to Canada following a stint in California–and in a karaoke van, at that–will riff on the ideas in her book, The Whuffie Factor over coffee and croissants on Wednesday morning. “Whuffie” is all about social capital, and Tara has plenty of that. I’m excited to to hear her present–as long as she doesn’t ask us to sing!

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The first centers on Dan’s continued thinking around the Facebook Effect: Just how do you handle those friend requests from people you barely know? And then this: “How do you create a private space in which to have deeper interaction while also simultaneously nourishing and expanding/growing your public persona and public interactions?”

This blurring of public and personal on Facebook is a subject Dan and I will cover at the 2010 SXSW Interactive conference–if our proposed panel is chosen (public voting now closed).

‘Attention Wave’ package

Dan, whose day job is as chief conversation officer at Voxeo, also has a lengthy post about creating what he calls an “Attention Wave” around the release of a new product or service.

The idea? To capture attention and interest, your business needs to do much more than send out a press release. Instead, that release is just one part of larger “package,” with other complementary components distributed around the web.

Here’s Dan’s proposed package:

• A traditional press release, with accompanying photo(s), videos, and screenshots
• A post on the company’s corporate blog
• One or more embeddable videos
• A “deeper dive” post with more of the nitty-gritty on the product or service
• Companion posts from other employees
• Companion posts on external blogs and/or media sites, including from supporters of the company (expect to do some good advance PR to coordinate this effort)
• (Implied): Tweets with relevant links

As Dan rightly notes, offering multiple content pieces across multiple channels makes it more likely the story/product launch etc. will reach more eyeballs; plus, the array of sharable components (images, videos, etc.) enables reporters, bloggers, fans to more easily tell the company’s story to their readers and followers.

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OK, Dave is clearly trying to have some fun with the topic, but the real lesson from his post shouldn’t be missed: Commenting on other blogs is a good way to let the authors know you’re reading their content and find it interesting and worth your time. Plus, you can often jump into a rich comment stream that also includes contributions from other readers.

I’m as guilty as the next guy at reading a blog post and then busily moving on to the next one, possibly stopping only to tweet out a link as a form of appreciation. But as Dave rightly notes, a (re)tweet, while complimentary,  “doesn’t match comments in terms of depth or, necessarily, furthering the discussion.”

By coincidence, my own revised social media marketing plan for LiveWorld includes a rededication to blog commenting: five comments a day minimum on external blogs. Yes, the quality of a comment is arguably more important than the quantity, but committing to a daily target helps ensure your efforts become a habit.

Building trust through comments

And, hey, don’t just take my word for it! Chris Brogan and Julien Smith–now bestselling authors–suggest that blog commenting is also a good tactic for building trust in your community. From page 103 of Trust Agents:

Leave 10 comments today and then 10 tomorrow, even if some are just thank-you notes. They’ll quickly become a staple of your daily online activities, and reading what others have to say will help you develop your own ideas as well as leave an impression on those who follow you. You’ll start to become memorable … and maybe even make a few friends.

Dave Fleet photo by Rannie Turingan.

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From that list, here are four that resonate with me:

• LifeChurch.tv - Reaching 2 Million+ With Technology - How one church (an online one, in this case), is using technology to share the Christian message
• Democratized Event Planning via Social Tools - The Social Media Breakfast series be a whole lot less successful without tools like blogs, Twitter, and Ustream to get out the word about events and capture them live. Panel organizer Jason Keath is on to something here.
• Anatomy of a TEDTalk - Jason Wishnow and June Cohen of Ted.com offer insight into the production process of the popular TedTalks video series.
• Can I Reserve This Book With My iPhone? - How libraries stay relevant in the digital age.

And if you’re still looking for one extra panel to give your thumbs-up support to between now and Friday night, there’s a certain proposed discussion about the impact of Facebook that I think will be worth your while, too.

Public voting on all of the potential SXSW 2010 panels closes this Friday, September 4.

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Pimping for votes isn’t exactly my style.

But when it comes to getting a proposed SXSW Interactive 2010 panel through to the next round of consideration in a very crowded field–there are more than 2,000 potential panels (gulp) up for votes–I don’t know that I have any other choice.

And so it is that I shamelessly ask you to consider casting a “thumbs-up” vote this entry: “My Mom Just Joined Facebook–Now What?” Here’s the abstract:

Social networking sites like Facebook are changing our conversational relationships. The lines we once drew between our separate social groups–family members, friends, workmates, etc.–have been obliterated online. Now, your drinking buddies, old boss, and mother all see the very same status update. Disconcerting…or the new normal?

So who’s on the panel?

I’ve tried to assemble a well-rounded, thoughtful foursome to join me for the discussion (I’ll be sitting in the moderator’s chair).

• Marshall Kirkpatrick, VP and lead blogger at ReadWriteWeb. Marshall delivers the best Facebook coverage of any tech writer that I follow, including posts on user privacy options.
• Dan York is a technologist and director of conversations at Voxeo. It was Dan’s audio commentaries for the FIR podcast earlier this year that actually helped crystallize my thoughts around “The Facebook Effect.”
• Chris Abraham is president and COO of Abraham Harrison LLC. He first caught my attention with a clever campaign targeting the Power Age 150 bloggers, and proved to be an engaging guy when we met face-to-face in Boston last month. Plus, as Chris points out, he has some “very strong opinions” on Facebook.
• Annie Boccio, a web-presence designer and consultant at PixelCurrents.com. Annie rightly called me out for only having dudes on the panel (though she was very nice about it!). Annie’s in the middle of a research project on Facebook, so she’s the perfect choice to round out our group.

Just two more things: 1) Public voting makes up 30% of the decision-making process according to SXSW, so your selections do matter. 2) The public vote closes this Friday, September 4.

Here’s where you can cast your vote: “My Mom Just Joined Facebook–Now What?”

Thanks.

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That’s the question Chris Brogan and Julien Smith were asking while roaming the halls of the MarketingProfs Digital Mixer in Scottsdale, Arizona — Flip cams in hand — last fall.

I don’t remember exactly how I responded, except that I was generally incoherent.

But if Chris and Julien were to pose that same question to me today, on the day they begin the big push of their new book, Trust Agents, I’d have a more thoughtful reply.

My three requirements for building online trust

With the people I trust online …

1) … it’s not all about them. That means not trying to sell me something just hours (minutes?) after we’ve connected online, so website-pimping Twitter auto-DMs and an immediate onslaught of Facebook invitations/e-mails to events promoting their junk are big warning signs. Instead, my trust goes out to the folks who, as Chris would say, aim to “be helpful first.”

2) … we share something — or enough — in common. This usually starts at the personal level — we both have young children, are Red Sox fans, or enjoy traveling — and then (sometimes) progresses to more business-y conversations.

3) … they pass the “Breakfast or Beer Test.” This is more of a gut response than anything else, but often flows from points 1 and 2 above. Quite simply, would I want to chat with them over morning coffee or an afternoon/evening brew?

This isn’t a super-complicated formula, but it works for me. And as for how my three-part test jibes with the advice from Chris and Julien in Trust Agents, I guess I’ll found out in a few days. I just placed my Amazon order for the book.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ambernaslund/ / CC BY 2.0

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