FYI Leaderboards (lists) are an important function of community online or offline. The Role of Leaderboards in Online Communities.

From PeerIndex. Compare with the (outdated) Klout list  – based on my list from 2009. Use your scrolly-wheely-mousey thing to scroll. Which journalist/media person is missing? Let me know, I’ll add them, and we’ll see where they are on the list

Note Rupert Murdoch and Monica Attard are fairly new to social media so their ranking will increase if they continue to use it.

Influence is a funny thing – other people have to say you have it. And more than say, they have to show it in their actions. Retweeting, sharing, liking, forwarding, commenting, emailing… that’s influence. In some senses “influence” is filtering. Communities seek out people who can filter for them. Journalists filter News, Academia filters Research, Academy Awards filters Actors, Olympics filters SportsPeople. And I’m filtering Journalists for you.

Always consider the filtering system e.g. Authors. First they must finish the book, then they must get published, then they must get distributed, then they must get on a Top list, then they need word of mouth. Lots of filtering to be a successful author. Here is a list of different types of Influencers and Social Media.

Influence is a TIME thing too.

Start, build a profile, contribute, get rewarded in comments and connections, if you don’t like what you get rewarded with, revise your tone and strategies.

What do you think? Can journalists that come with inbuilt reputation systems of filters by Editors and Media Proprietors gain EARNED media in social media?

Images from my diagram set.

DISCLAIMER: I run classes on building reputation and influence in social media and how to find influencers. #RhymeMeetReason

Social Media Campaign (one day course)

We cover the basis of a 5-step social media campaign and then use the computers to gain hands on practical use of social media tactics and tools including Facebook, Twitter, a monitoring station and a social media website. which the student can continue to use after the course. This is very intensive course.

• Brisbane 13th February More Information Here
• Sydney 15th February More information here
• Melbourne 17th February More Information Here 

Google Plus For Business (Morning Course)

We cover the basics of the service and then use the computers to gain hands on practical use of Google Plus for both Personal but mainly Business use, which the student can continue to use after the course. This is a very intensive course on the world’s fastest growing social network from Google. Computer access is restricted to 12 people so places are limited in this course.  Google Plus reached 49 million members (Dec 2011) in only a few months! And more interestingly, Google Plus is set to reach 400 million members during 2012. Facebook has around 800 million members – why not spend an afternoon learning about Google Plus

• Sydney 6 March 2012 More Information Here

LinkedIn for Business (Afternoon Course)

We cover the basics of the service and then use the computers to gain hands on practical use of LinkedIn for both Professional but mainly Company use, which the student can continue to use after the course. This is a very intensive course on the world’s largest professional social network, LinkedIn. Computer access is restricted to 12 people so places are limited in this course. LinkedIn is the truly business social network and suitable for business to business (accountants, lawyers, consultants) as well as recruiters and career people. LinkedIn has 100 million members worldwide and over a million Australians active on it monthly – wy not spend an morning learning about LinkedIN?

• Sydney 6 March 2012 More Information Here

I only teach these hands-one courses a two -three times a year but I think the next one’s will be June-July-ish? Will let you know.

By the way, you can have social media classes (computer or strategy) inhouse too. Let my PA Cheryll know you are interested and she’ll email you the details:  PA (at) laurelpworth.com is Cheryll’s email address.  My one day Uni of Sydney non computer classes are at the Centre for Continuing Education. You can keep uptodate with courses by signing up for my enewsletter.

This morning School Kids across Australia are whining and whinging and generally getting antsy. Lunches made, new books packed in new school bags, iPads for those Santa thought were “nice”, crappy laptops for those he didn’t, First Day Back At School photos to be taken and posted on Facebook…

Hold on a minute. Do you really want your little darling’s face & body, with the school they go to, and a handy take-out guide of what they look like dawdling on their way home from school posted up on a public site? Did you share it only with the “Family” list on Facebook? Or was it Public? Do/Don’t care? Global Village vs CyberPrivacy? You tell me.

I’m just glad your brats aren’t under my feet at the mall anymore. I’m going shopping. Heh.

The photo is from the 1930′s. No Facebook then. No decent socks either…

Things to consider: risk assessment (low risk, high risk), the invisible audience (who is watching, how do you know), are you taking privacy away as a choice for kids when they get older (their life is already online cos mum put up there), perhaps there’s a safety pointer too – everyone will know what your kids look like, and the “global neighbourhood village” will come into play, as a crowdsourced “Net Curtain Flicking”. LOL. You tell me.

Remember: if you don’t post photos of your kids, the idiot next door at the birthday party will. And tag them on facebook with what school they go to, and what sports they play.

I’ve been putting out a podcast on Online Communities and Social Media for a number of years and experimented with different genres. I have done step by step technical screencasts, chatting from an armchair a la Hitchcock! and I am now working with Panel of smart Social Media people.

Social Media Business by Laurel Papworth

My little ol’ podcast is definitely not the best. There’s lots of technical things I don’t understand and am learning. For example, this episode had my mouth out of synch with the words and took Gary hours to correct. So I skipped doing the normal stuff like straplines to fix it the synch problem.  The latest episode is a panel with Lee Hopkins from South Australia, Téa Smith from Western Australia, Stephen Johnson from Melbourne, and myself Laurel Papworth from Sydney as well as Shel Israel from the USA.  We talk about Local Government and social media, Wikipedia and SOPA blackout, Facebook and the cruise liner sinking, and other issues where social media and society intersect. 

Social Media Business 13: Panel with Shel Israel from Laurel Papworth on Vimeo.

You can subscribe to more on Vimeo (I’m moving off YouTube) or subscribe in iTunes. Go to Social Media Business page on Apple iTunes website then click View in iTunes to launch the iTunes app. Audio version is also available.

We’re thinking of asking some of the podcasters below to join the panel one week – so we can get free tips (yay!) and to help you guys understand the value of a podcast to your social media offering. We’re also looking for other possible people to interview (you?) so let me know…

List of Social Media Podcasts:

Some of these I listen to regularly, some I dip and out of, some I’ve never listened to but included because I was told about them. Snack as thy will.

1. DishyMix by Susan Bratton (I listen to a lot)
2. Connected Social Media has a lot of case studies of mostly big business
3. Marketing Over Coffee SUBSCRIBED
4. For Immediate Release – Shel Holtz et al have been around forever in Social Public Relation. http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/
5. The Engaging Brand – Anna Farmery (very English!) SUBSCRIBED
6. This Week in Social Media by webtv network VIDEO Yay! SUBSCRIBED
7. Social Buzz Awards weekly podcast from UK
8. Allure New Media Webinars on social media
9. Digital Breezes by Leonie Smith (another Aussie! yay!)
10. Trafcom Communication by Donna Papacosta. Not just a social media podcast also communication. Tips on LinkedIn.
11. Managing the Gray - changing and evolving in social media. http://www.managingthegray.com/
12. Six Pixels of Separation - Twistimage often rates highly in social media podcast awards http://www.twistimage.com/podcast/ SUBSCRIBED

Please let me know if the link doesn’t work as Apple doesn’t make it easy to promote podcasts with links. Sometimes itpc:// works and sometimes it doesn’t! Some have phobos addresses (apple links) and others don’t. Grrr. I wrote SUBSCRIBED if it’s one I’m currently listening to, but I float in and out of content.  I’ve tried to avoid the obvious bandwagon podcasts for obvious reasons, and present a list that you might find interesting.

EDIT. Eric mentioned LivingMauiSocial.com as being fun.

click to see the secret anti ad

Consumers Make (Parody) Ads Too.  What happens when the consumer fights back against the advertiser (using social media channels)? Now that the customer has access to most of the same channels as companies, what happens when they decide to create anti-ads?  Everyone from time to time has made a teensy little negative tweet on Twitter or status update on Facebook or some other online community against a company. “Oh I hate that new deodorant/car/lime green eyeshadow” we rant then move on. It  takes a quite a lot of passion and commitment to shift the consumer from almost passive snippy media snacks like status updates to spending their weekend creating full blown anti ads. So I thought I’d put together a list of 8 or so anti branding ads with the lesson buried in the satire. If you want more information try: Wikipedia – Parody Advertisements.  I see this “consumer creating anti ads” as an offshoot to culture jamming.  Warning: May Make Advertising Agencies Cry.

1. Fotoshop by Adobé (A-do-bay)

“This commercial isn’t real, and neither are society’s standards of beauty.”

Not really an ad against Photoshop – oops Fotoshop – more against women’s magazines, airbrushed fashionistas and fiction in advertising. Dove soap did it officially, but this user generated ad by californian filmmaker Jesse Rosten is still interesting.

Lesson: You may not know what your product or service is being used for by customers, but the “ignorance is not a defence” applies when widespread harm is perceived by the community. You might as well be selling drugs or weapons for the brand damage it might do in the future.

2. Qantas parody – too many to mention

Qantas attracts parodies to their “I Still Call Australia Home” tagline like flies to … Probably because what they say is the antithesis of what they do. People aren’t stupid and that sort of mismatch of value systems is ripe for satire. I do like the “Downfall” parodies (Hitler throwing a tantie, a mashup from the movie Downfall) but these more amateur ones show the depth of disappointment in the Australian public towards our national airline.

Lesson: when customers are stranded in their tens of thousands, when your own staff create a massive anti-brand campaign (QantasPilots.com.au) and the Prime Minister of Australia gets stroppy, yes you really do have a “brand image problem”.

3.  Mastercard Priceless (NSFW – Not Safe For Work)

I showed this at a conference once and got told off. So you are duly warned. But still one of my fave parody ads.

Lesson: Your tagline, which you spent many a marketing dollar on, may come back to haunt you. Priceless.

4. ANTI Starbucks parody ad from Adbusters

Core message “The United States of Obesity”

From Adbusters – the guys behind the original #Occupy tags bring you #NoStarbucks. Guessing that Starbucks got the “advertising message”? Right back at ya, Starbucks. We’ve definitely progressed from the Consumerist (The Shopper Bites Back) of a few years ago to more activist Adbuster style voicing of our concerns today.

Lesson: Subvertising is perhaps closer to advertising than customer created content. Using professional actors, editors agencies, to take an activist message. But still, it works as an anti Ad.

5. Smoking is good for your health – Climate Reality Project

Comparing marketing tactics by tobacco companies to discredit smoking and health implications – and how the same tactics are being used today to discredit climate issues.

Lesson: The same “educational” broadcast tools in the hands of big budget, big advertisers are in the hands of anyone with a YouTube channel.

6. Tourism Australia – NOT.

10 Reasons NOT to come to Australia.

I loved it when New Zealand Tourism jumped in on this one – very cheeky.

Lesson: While the challenge  of a company coming up with a campaign tagline eg “10 reasons to come to australia”, then the consumer comes up with the anti message is old news, the fact that the consumer will often do it with more humour and self deprecation means it is often more effective.

7. Generic ranting and ratbaggery – MacDonalds

This type of anti-advertising has no redeeming virtues. Juvenile, rascist, pissing-around. These people create anti-ads to cater to the lowest denominator in society: shutting them up doesn’t make them go away.

Lesson: Don’t let crappy videos with 60 views a) influence senior execs into thinking that all user generated content is made by timewasting nutters and b) be wary how you respond. Getting the lawyers in is just as likely to bring the videos to the attention of a wider audience as it is to shut the great unwashed up. (see 8 ways to deal with negative criticism online)

8. GetUp! Call to action spoof videos

Politics and our Prime Minister. Really anything political is ripe for user generated anti ads, or even activist community anti ads. GetUp! is one of Australia’s citizen lobby group.

Lesson: An Influencer (person with a lot of followers) or Network Host (such as activist groups like GetUp!) can press community members into creating a lot of spoof anti-ads around your brand. If you think the odd random tweet is bad, wait until an activated anti-community comes calling.  How’s your social media monitoring coming along hmm?

Have you got a great spoof you’ve a mind to create and publish? What companies/taglines are just begging for a satirical ripoff video? Any favourites out there?

Ah well, all Press is Good Press, no?

I just think people should “own” their value systems & be accountable for them. If Kyle offends you time after time, stop listening and for God’s sake dont advertise on his show. If you find him funny, provocative and/or just the sort of politically incorrect ass that Australia needs, stand by him.

Chopping and changing value systems based on public outcrys is hypocritical, no?

Kyle Sandilands Recent Rant

On Tuesday Sandilands had personally attacked news.com.au entertainment reporter Alison Stephenson for her review of his TV show, A Night with the Stars.

“Some fat slag on the Telegraph website, sorry, news.com.au, has already branded it a disaster. You can tell by reading the article she just hates us. What a fat bitter thing you are. You’ve got a nothing job anyway. You’re a piece of shit,” he said.

His co-host Jackie O joked that Sandilands didn’t take criticism well. Sandilands then named Stephenson and said: “You are supposed to be impartial, you little troll … You’re a bullshit artist girl. That’s what you are. You should be fired from your job.”

After Jackie O told listeners that the article contained a picture of the reporter, Sandilands said: “You haven’t got that much titty to be wearing that low cut a blouse. Watch your mouth girl, or I will hunt you down.”

Coincidentally reported on News.com.au – where the “female journalist” works.

Now if this was a nice Christian boy that lost it, I could understand that his rant would upset people.

But I can’t. He’s an a-hole, was an a-hole always will be an a-hole. Why are advertisers surprised?

From Twitter:

• @Blackmores We instructed our media agency 2 pull all our ads from 2DayFM. If you do hear 1 of our ads please let us know ASAP #Kylesandilands#VileKyle
• @HoldenNews #Holden withdraws sponsorship of Kyle & Jackie O Breakfast Show: bit.ly/u8QiU5
• @crazyjohns To clarify – Crazy John’s is not a sponsor of the Kyle and Jackie O Show and our ads have been removed from the program.
• Fantastic Furniture, Good Guys, Vodafone, Harvey Norman, Medibank and so on have finally pulled their advertising.

Hypocrite number two is Catherine Deveny

Deveny drew the most criticism for writing that she hoped 11-year-old TV star Bindi Irwin “gets laid” and that former TV host Rove McManus’ wife Tasma “didn’t die too” – referring to the loss of his first wife, Belinda Emmett, to cancer in 2006.

CatherineDeveny  Want to get rid of #VileKyle and send a message to other creeps? Please sign this petition and RT. Thank-you!change.org/petitions/2day…

CatherineDeveny  I’d love to show my disgust at #VileKyle by stop listening to his show but I’ve never listened and don’t even know what station he’s on.

CatherineDeveny: Holden, Vodafone, Goodguys and @Blackmores have dropped  #VileKyle - @Pepsi @Fosters, @Adrenaline & @FantasticFurniturehaven’t.

News just to hand @FantasticFurniture has just dropped #VileKyletoo (via @LucretiaBorden) KEEP THE PRESSURE ON!!!!

Advertising by @CrazyJohns @Telstra and @HarveyNormanAUALSO prop up #VileKyle. Boycott and pile on the pressure.

Yesterday, Salman Rushdie, real name “Ahmed Rushdie” ran afoul of Facebook. The man who has battled jihads and militant movements out to assassinate him, had his identity hijacked from him, in one fell swoop by Facebook. Apparently Salman is not his real first name, it’s Ahmed. You can follow the story on The Guardian, on The New York Times and on Salman err Ahmed Rushdie’s Facebook Page.

Facebook says that we have to use our real name, not anonymous to keep ourselves accountable. What a crock…

Pseudonymity, Anonymity and Accountability

A Pseudonym is a name you choose, usually yourself, like a nickname to represent yourself on or offline, usually reasonably permanent. Anonymity is a temporary name, often “Anon” and Accountability is the reputation and trust you gain with that name.

For example, Salman Rushdie has to be very careful what he says online – poorly written material, lots of spelling errors, unclear concepts will lead people to say “gosh, he’s not as good a writer as I thought he was!”. Diatribes that are anti any race or religion, political agendas and so on must match the image he projects as himself, or there will be questions asked. Salman Rushdie is accountable to the reputation and trust he has built up over the years.

Ahmed Rushdie can, on the other hand, do what the fark he wants. Even though Ahmed is his real name, and Salman his pseudonym, it’s Salman that suffers or gains from online interactions in reputation and trust. “Salman Rushdie” is accountable, “Ahmed Rushdie” is not.

We build our trust and reputation on a whole lot more than the name we choose. A Rose Is A Rose… 

Which reminds me: SilkCharm is my online persona – she can be smart ass, snarky, grumpy, funny and klutzy. And she rarely swears. She stays on message – online communities are good, broadcasting spammy advertising is bad. If  I were to change that mantra, questions would be asked. And sometimes the Pseudonym takes over: I was at Kate Kendall’s The Fetch drinks the other night and people asked me “who are you?” I responded “Laurel Papworth”. Jo or one of the others would pipe up “She’s SilkCharm”! OOOOH SIIIIILLLLKCHARRRRM. Laurel is unknown, SilkCharm isn’t.

All of which sounds pretty strange if you’ve never had a pseudonym or nickname. Why would people choose another name?

The Importance of Pseudonyms.

Not everyone wants the name they were born with. Richard becomes Dick, Margaret becomes Meg or Peggy. Nicknames stick around, especially if you’ve had that name since you were a kid playing footy.  Who else uses nicknames? Women online – a lot. We’ve used them since day dot (well, since I’ve been in online communities, anyway, around the end of the 1980′s). We can be ourselves, speak up, debate, without fear of some loony guy showing up on the doorstep if we use a Pseudonym. Which reminds, me, sex workers and astrologers use pseudonyms online. Neither wants to connect their hobby or business with their real name, sometimes because they don’t want their friends and family to find out. Not because they are doing anything illegal online but in the case of sex workers, they wouldn’t be able to join a Health group or Abuse group if they use their real name.  Most of the Health online communities I work in – even the one’s around Asthma and Weight Loss, not necessarily the more stigmatized health issues – the community members would be a lot less forthcoming if forced to use their real names. Role playing games need a good pseudonym – no, not S&M and Sex Dungeons you goose. I mean World of Warcraft and Farmville and Dungeons and Dragons.

When I was in Saudi Arabia, working on the women’s online community (iMatter, showing that Women of Islam matter), no one used their real name. That’s right, 100′s of thousands of women used pseudonyms. Not one used their real name. Google Plus’ and Facebook’ Police would have a field day banning and removing left right and centre.

Not every reason for using a Pseudonym online is for nefarious trolling purposes. Sometimes it is NOT safe to use your real name online.

Newspaper Articles and Accountable Comments

One of the biggest issues facing newspapers online is that they do not build community – no one can add their boss or their mum or a great commenter as their friend on the Sydney Morning Herald or The Australian site. Because of that, people can let loose in comments, be anonymous but more than anonymous, be unaccountable. No tracking = bad behaviour. With temporary identities, there is NO accountability and NO community management. Let me click ignore on an idiot and click follow on a non idiot and you’ll see how quickly behaviours shift. Ok, it’s a bit tougher in newspapers – their tone and general spin is negative and snarky so they get negative and snarky comments in return.  But not every section of the paper is like that, so a good community (with Profiles, Reputation, Leadership, Points, Etiquette, Rituals etc) would be rewarded with better behaviour. I feels sorry for the journalists – the lack of community tools puts a target on their backs for online assassination and no protection is offered at all by the studio system that is traditional media. 

It is worth reviewing Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs apropos Online Communities : sustainability of identity and safety of the members, are two very missing functions in articles-with-comments sites like news online. By the way, when newspapers complain of bad behaviour in their comments section, or when the Communications Council tries to stop anonymous comments, tell them to build community, not articles with comments. They won’t understand what you mean – and that in and of itself is an issue.  Mostly because Newspapers think their product is articles, not readers and are therefore unprepared for the real war being waged over customer-as-product.

Your Identity is Facebook and Google’s “product”

By using your real identity, Facebook and Google can sell you as a psychographic or “Demographic of One” to companies. They can advertise directly to you based on your personal information collected over years. Forcing real names has nothing to do with “protecting you online” – as above, that is clearly incorrect, nickname Salman is no more likely to go off the rails than real name Ahmed, in fact less so. And everything to do with selling marketing intelligence. Facebook Farmville game maker Zynga doesn’t call themselves a games company, but a marketing intelligence company – they know everything about you.

Bottom Right Hand Corner – Market Intelligence. Your Identity = $$$$$. Will be the second biggest revenue earner in the Social Economy. 

I can already take out a Facebook ad for $1 a day and target 16 to 17 year old women, single, who like roller blading and Britney Spears and go to Wagga Wagga TAFE. And get those exact women, not some general 16-45 y.o. female demographic that may buy a magazine for one article. What will the future bring when Facebook and Google track those women across multiple platforms – across their searches, their friends, their restaurant checkins and their travel preferences? Oh wait, that’s already here and is called Google Plus.

Repeat after me: There is no community protection in using “real names”. There is huge money to be made from “real names”.

Incidentally I suspect that we’ll be able to have pseudonyms in the future, like Yahoo! allows, which hang off the main “real name” account. Blizzard have brought that in for World of Warcraft too. Just remember, they do know who you are, even if you create the fake secondary account, and are still tracking your marketing behaviours online!

An event worth attending – see below (remember, Google and Facebook are removing Pseudonymity as well as Anonymity)  

Media140 EVENT - Digital Anonymity: Do we have a right to anonymity online?

We are bringing together the some of the most exciting and influential thinkers in Australian digital media to share their experience and knowledge with a small number of participants at media140+ events in Sydney.

media140+ events are a natural extension of our larger events, but much more of a focus on creating more intimate experiences with a smaller number of people. Allowing everyone who participates a much greater opportunity to debate, engage and collaborate. media140+ events will run every month as an open forum with emphasis on creating conversation and collaboration.

Theme		Digital Anonymity: Do we have a right to anonymity online? As Google and Facebook try by force to remove anonymity from the web, is privacy no longer seen as a funamental right? Will it become a commodified product we will have to purchase? We take a look at the legal, social and media perspectives and ask the question is it really that important?
Speakers		John Kerrison (Host) Sky News Business Anne Hurley Interim CEO internet industry association Stilgherrian Writer and broadcaster Jessica HIll Producer/Reporter at ABC Radio Current Affairs David Stewart Director, Wrays

You can book here at amiando media140

PS My little sister calls me Lolly. In a whiney voice. Try it and I will hunt you down and shove your mouse/iphone up your nose. My name is SilkCharm. Ms SilkCharm to you. Here Endeth the Blog Post.  :P

A few nights ago, I went to the bloggers/Twitterers briefing for News.com new digital subscriptons for news hosted by Chief Executive Officer – News Digital Media and The Australian Richard Freudenstein and The Australian’s editor Clive Mathieson. The usual suspects were there – bloggers and twitterers I see around from time to time – and a handful of new faces. No journalists, except a journalists that now work in social media and a few bloggers now paid to bring their audiences and expert knowledge to journalism (blogournalists?) e.g. my partner Gary Hayes being published in Wired and The Guardian.

This is a bit of a lengthy post so I’ve put together a Table of Contents below including an overview of the Paywall, the promotional Future of Media site, the role of News and it’s value in society, the shift to Social News and even suggested REVENUE STREAMS – snack at will:

Background to News.com Digital Subscriptions (Paywall)  

Printed newspapers usually double dip payments – the Reader pays a subscription or one-off fee to purchase a whole newspaper to read the bits they want. Commercial Clients (Advertisers) pay to display their ads to the readers. Online newspapers until now usually don’t charge readers, they just charge the Commercial Clients. This month, News.com, will charge fees to read some single articles online (not the whole newspaper).  From Mumbrella:

But to recap, it’s a “freemium” model – enough free content to hang on to advertising revenue; with the more exclusive, analytical and opinion stuff likely to be behind the wall. There’ll be flexibility on how much locked content there will be based, in part, on how subs are going at the time and how much advertising is booked.

The price point opens at $2.95 a week for a digital-only pass to the site and apps. There are a combination of packages up to $7.95 for a six day print sub along with the digital options.

However, the first five items of content accessed via Google will be free each day, while (probably) just the first item via Facebook will be.

Note: apparently after Mumbrella and Ross Dawson reported on the final point (social media distribution sites getting some perks) this was backtracked by News.com, at least temporarily.

Why invite Bloggers to a News.com Press briefing?  

Well duh, who else are they going to invite? Their own staff? “News.com announced a fabulous business model today…” The opposition? ABC News which, like BBC News comes in for a regular bollocking from Mr. Murdoch? Fairfax? Crikey?  “News.com signed their own death warrant today…” or simply “Home Goal!”  At least with Bloggers the Public Relations is manageable – if we are in favour of the paywall, it’s all good PR. If we criticise it, well, what do you expect from bloggers who are “plagiarising mainstream media articles” willy nilly and are all nutters anyway!?!

So damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. That’s not going to stop me though, is it? So read on. Heh.

The FutureOfJournalism Discussion site  

Hold your horses just one darn minute! This IS recognition that bloggers and twitterers are critical in the distribution of News. Hence the development of a microcommunity The Future of Media. And the use of YouTube etc to distribute the news about the Paywall.

Interesting: News “reaches” 13 million Australians per week.  Facebook reaches 1.1 million Australians daily and is growing.

Traditional Media rules Twitter – or not.

Really? Click image below to see larger print of who actually is doing distribution of content online during crisis. The graph is from the Government Convergent Review initiative. I certainly agree that Traditional Media is sourcing it’s stories and contacts from Twitter – I frequently get journalists trying to raid my networks with a “can you tell me which of your followers do XYZ?” type requests. But the greatest source? No. We retweet the originator, unless that is not available – we then “fail over” to Media. And don’t even get me started on News.com (Fox) lack of coverage of OccupyWallStreet. (NB I’ll be on Radio National Monday night talking about OccupyWallstreet and social media).

I was originally going to contribute to the blog, as a favour to the PR person putting it together – then actually kicked my brain into gear: A blogger writing for FREE to promote the placing of OUR stories behind a NEWS Paywall that the reader would still be subjected to ADVERTISING? Seriously? If I was to flip that around, it would be like taking out an Advertisement to Repudiate the Validity of Advertising. Or putting out a Press Release on How Press Releases Are No Longer Effective. But I accept at face -value the argument that News.com is being impartial, and aggregating opinions. For that reason, and that reason alone, I am happy for this blog post (on my blog, LaurelPapworth.com) to appear on a New.com site. Not that I have any say in it – Fair use laws and my Creative Commons licence ensure that my content is free to roam the ‘net as long as it is not sold.

Which reminds me, how will a digital subscription article get around Creative Commons licencing which stipulates Not for Commercial Gain? They had better have checks and balances for that – I see blogger articles and user generated photos appearing all the time in mainstream media online. Who is protecting OUR content?

Putting a fence around community online stories through digital subscriptions will clash surely with the rise of the New Fourth Estate, the Commoner Blogger which highlights a taking back of the Human story, back to Village storytelling? Perhaps it won’t. Perhaps it will work the same way that music (the Village bard) works – it can be downloaded for free, but most people respect the music, love the musician and want to pay. Enter iTunes.

Are the stories that News.com publish “original” in the sense that music is original? Or are the stories mishmashes of other people’s original content – interviews, tweets, blog posts, statistics on Analyst websites and PDFs and press releases?

The New Fourth Estate is Social Media  

The Fourth Estate follows the first three of Organised Religion,  Nobility or Lords (probably Big Bosses and/or Politicians today), and The commoner (Workers, self employed etc) as forces that can act on society, humanity, community, one that has influence and can effect change:

The concept of the Fourth Estate (or fourth estate) is a societal or political force or institution whose influence is not consistently or officially recognized. The Fourth Estate now most commonly refers to the news media; especially print journalism, referred to hereon as “The Press”.

Oscar Wilde wrote:
“ In old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralizing. Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism. ”

In American English, the phrase “fourth estate” is contrasted with the “fourth branch of government”. The “fourth estate” is used to emphasize the independence of the Press, while the “fourth branch” suggests that the Press is not independent of the government. (Wikipedia)

Do you think bloggers can effect change? Are they the new Press? Can Twitterers empower change e.g. ArabSpring? Will OccupyWallStreet go anywhere? Can the Third Estate (Common workers) merge with Press. Perhaps we are the Three and Half Estate?  Does Oscar Wilde have a point – “bloggers have nothing to say and say it”?

The Function of News in Community  

One Upon A Time, when one village had a fire, a flood, a murder or a festival planned, it was a big deal to tell villagers in other villages. Family members would hop onto donkeys and travel out seeking help and refuge and bringing News. Wandering minstrels roamed the countryside doing viral distribution of gossip and politics. Usually for their supper and a place to sleep. Sometimes in return for help – singing for one’s supper is an ancient tradition. News was rarely impartial, always embellished and made entertaining. The Myth of Impartiality depended on the dourness and known agendas of the deliverer of the News whether they be farmers or bards.

The commercialization of News turned professional the collecting of stories from the part of the community creating the story (original source) and delivering them to the part of the community that does NOT know the story (audience).

Will you pay for a story that has travelled from one part of the community to another, or will you go into that community (online) yourself and google the story?

Commercialization of Human Stories  

The collecting of different original source material from community members and shaping it into an aggregated story (quotes from Experts Du Jour, statistics, photographs) becomes the bards’ oops journalists’ content. To be sold. And to make sure the original source (those subjected to murders, floods and fire) don’t get too miffed about their stories being ripped out of their hands and syndicated at a profit, the community taboos around “They SOLD their story” were created. Can’t have a class action to stop profiteering on our stories now can we?

Still, this distribution was an important role, and pushed Human Evoluton forward. Without communication channels, it would take forever to bring up to speed the next village and the one after that on latest crop, health and education techniques. News collecting, writing and distribution was not a cost-free service and had to be paid for – through ads, subscription and so on.

Are you happy with stories being taken from victims and sold from behind a paywall, or will you “pay” the original source in respect and reputation by being a “view” on their blog or vote on their heartfelt YouTube video?

De-Commercialization of Human Stories    

Eye Witness: On October 11, 2002 there was a bombing at a shopping mall in Myyrmanni, Finland in which 7 were killed including children and 166 injured. You can read the newspaper reports about it OR you can read Juha Haataja:

I and my youngest daughter were lucky yesterday, Friday, October 11th, 2002. There was an explosion at the shopping center in the suburb of Myyrmäki, in the city of Vantaa, Finland. This text is written one day later to capture the crime which shocked the Finnish people.

Why I was at Myyrmanni

I drove straigth from work to the Myyrmanni shopping center, which is located in the city of Vantaa, near Helsinki. The previous night our youngest daughter had trouble sleeping, and I wanted to buy new batteries for our digital thermometer. This I did at Myyrmanni at about 16:15, and then I drove home.

At home I and my wife discussed the situation of our daughter. We decided that it would be good to have her checked at the medical care center at Myyrmanni, in case she had an ear infection. So, at about 17:30 I drove back to Myyrmanni with our daughter.

Newpaper reports will either cut down the original source to a couple of sentences, or use the Original Source as “background material”. Pilfering the story without full attribution.

Expert Information: too many expert stories on everything. Perhaps I should simply point out that the policeman in this story: LAPD Cop that tweeted a link to this photo of a bloody crime scene (only click if you are NOT squeamish) didn’t post it for money. He would’ve posted the photo up for Ye Olde Village rewards of reputation as an original source expert and as an information distributor AND increased trust in his own social network (not necessarily the general public!). Media companies have been known to enforce copyright on original source content – suing the original person who posted the original story online and having it removed. E.g the teacher with the funny orchestra video that YouTube removed after MTV or similar pirated his content then claimed it as their own.

WhistleBlower: When an anonymous policeman Night Jack blogged about life in the force, he wrote starkly of day to day life. Night Jack was both venerated (won the Orwell prize for political writing) and hounded (outed as Richard Horton, by News.com The Times ). The latter causing him to be disciplined by his employers and the enforced deletion of his blog. Thus was the “public’s right to know” served.

Investigative Reporting: Deep insider stuff. Mike Daisey, blogger, infiltrating Apple China to deliver us a story. That old woman who infiltrated Barak Obama die-hard only meetings. Got picked up by the Huffington Post – you  know the one. A grandma blogger?  Spot.Us – moving journalists out of the “Hollywood Studio System” of the News Room and putting them on the same commercial footing as indy film makers and indy writers and indy musicians. Get the funding THEN do the story.

Do you want to pay for second hand stories, or do you want the Original Source? Google or Paywall?

Problem Journalism vs Solution Journalism  

Activism: Newspaper journalists aren’t big on creating the News but reporting on it. But Original Source (part of Citizen Journalism) is Solution Journalism investigating both the causes and the fixes. From the Head of the UN blogging to the CEO of Savings Bank to a Lecturer in Medicine to a Federal Circuit Judge to the President of Iran they all blog and talk about the challenges they and their industry face and the solutions they are implementing.

Bloggers don’t just tell you the crime rates have gone up, but how to fix it. They don’t just talk about Climate Issues but how to Heal Mother Earth. They don’t just expose the rip-off of parking in your local area but put the free parking on a map and post that online. Impartiality be damned, give us resolution.

Will a Paywall article give you just the Problem or a Solution? What do you want?

Product vs Process Journalism  

Everything is available: Nutty, Insightful, Extreme, Deep Expertise, Superficial Understanding – it’s all out there. The Process is collecting the different views and analysing them to come up with your own view. This is what blogging allows people to do. Product Journalism (traditional journalism) does it all for you. Tells you how to think, how to feel, what to be outraged about. Is Today Tonight or A Current Affair impartial reporting? Do you get all the different points of view weighed equally? Do the newspapers really present you in depth facts and allow you to make your own mind up? Would you be better served reading wide and varied and sort out your own fact from fiction?Humanity is at a cross roads when it comes to developing their value systems: to the Left, sort and make up your own mind, to the Right, continue to be spoon fed in soundbytes the ‘important’ News of the day.

Don’t have time? Ah well, newspapers might suit you. Or indeed, any blog aggregator online. How much are you willing to pay? Time = resources.

PS I won’t have time today (Sunday) to edit this article properly – be a Love and do it for me? Process journalism means you, my reader, are my Editor. Be kind, be nice. Heh.

What is a Newspaper’s Product Anyway?

Newspaper’s don’t create content (stories), they distribute them. And any company that does not create the original product but distributes that product is in the distribution, not manufacturing business. In fact a distribution company’s “products” is audience/channel not articles or widgets. Put is this way – you are not Facebook’s customer, you are Facebook’s product. Commercial Clients pay to advertise to you, pay for marketing intelligence about you, pay to sponsor your service.You pay nothing, because that would be a barrier to entry.

News.com insistence that their product is quality journalism is a sleight of hand, a deflection. Their product is eyeballs. They produce eyeballs for advertisers. Finding a way to double dip, a second revenue, by charging the product for feeding them back their own stories is traditional but not sustainable. You end up cannibalising your own revenue streams. Facebook is fighting to keep building their audience. Google Plus, Twitter, Foursquare and eBay are fighting to bring in MORE eyeballs and chasing Facebook. News.com insistence on reducing eyeballs by charging for stories is pretty crazy, no? Either build audiences and charge for advertising or accept niche and charge subscriptions.

I was a little taken aback when one of the News.com executive panel referred to their expert opinion writers as Industry leaders on Finance, Health, Politics etc. I had completely forgotten that some Experts come from the Writing field. For me an expert is a Practitioner. Is a Writer-Expert Non Practioner sustainable in a world where every practioner expert has a blog? Or will Practioner-Writer- Experts emerge as a whole new industry? It all gets very confusing. Look at  The Barefoot Investor Scott Pape site – is he a media personality/writer, or an expert investor with a voice?  Those that can do, those that can’t teach, blog and write? Tsk tsk. I do all those things.

Will charging for access to an article reduce News.com community further and how will their Advertisers respond to that?

Cannibalizing Readers: Will the paywall be a barrier to entry for audiences/readers?  

Put is this way, if News loses massive amounts of eyeballs due to paywall barrier to entry, will advertisers continue to value them? If everytime I go to a News site I’m worried that I might run into a paywall will I stop visiting, even if it only happens one in ten articles?  For me personally, I get grumpy if I accidentally click on a Sydney Morning Herald page these days in case the auto-play video ads start belting out. Even though they don’t every time, it’s  a fear I have.

Given that this paywall is moveable – I might read an article when it is free, tweet it to my 30,000+ Twitter followers and generate enough traffic for it to be automatically moved behind the paywall thereby generating grumpy tweets from my followers to me – I doubt I will be tweeting free OR premium content any time soon. It would have to be original and scarce in a new world of original and plenty.

 The New York Times Co. turned a third-quarter profit and now has 324,000 paid digital subscribers — about 40,000 more than the prior quarter, the company reported Thursday.

The modest profit of $15.7 million compares to a loss of $4.3 million for the year-ago quarter. Circulation revenue grew by 3.4% to $237 million. However, ad sales fell 8.8% to $262 million as national and classified advertising remained slack and online advertising for the Times-owned About.com was singled out for being “particularly weak.” (MASHABLE)

Any barrier to entry reduces audiences, and I’m not convinced that is a spiral I would want to exaceberate in Newspapers. What say you?

Distribution of News content is now Social  

If we come back to News.com product,  which is eyeballs and their service, which is distribution of content, activating the community to distribute the content is surely the way forward? News.com says they have never had so many eyeballs on their stories. Really? Do you think that tweeting and facebooking the content out into our social networks might have had something to do with that increase in eyeballs?  *end sarcasm*

Is charging your distribution channel (the community) to do your work for you in building eyeballs a sustainable model?

Some Solutions – Potential Revenue Streams

Finally – and thanks for sticking with me so far – the lack of community elements severely limits News.com. If we just take two or three possible revenue streams, you can see what I mean. And by community I don’t mean articles with comments. I mean full-on, profiles, friends lists, user submmissions, reward systems, leadership leaderboards, the whole kit and caboodle.

This diagram is from my article on Social Media Revenue Streams – some are relevant to news hosts, all are relevant to community hosts. Some need some adapting:  Merchandising e.g. News.com does very well out of NewsPics or whatever it’s called (their News Photo service to consumers). Only profitable division for News Interactive for years, from memory.

There are THREE players in an online community economy – Members (NOT usually the customer, think “Product”), Host (the Manufacturer) and Commercial Clients (the Payer wanting access to the Member).

Bottom Left: Member to Host (paywalls, Freemium). Bottom Right: Commercial Clients to Host (getting access to Members). Top Left Member to Member (clip of sale to Host) or Host to Member (Host pays member). Top Right: Commercial Clients direct to Members: (affiliate programs, APIs into community bypassing Host eg.  early days of Facebook F8 platform)

REVENUE ONE: Freemium (bottom left quadrant of Monetization graph)  

Let’s start with the paywall – members will pay for additional services on top of the free ones if they value them. News.com does not have a community – it barely has articles with comments let alone the other stuff. LinkedIn makes 3/4 more revenue from Freemium than it does from advertising but it has the mix right – does News? Will the Premium articles actually put us off checking the Free ones if we are worried we will run up against the Paywall all the time?

REVENUE ONE: Marketing Intelligence (bottom right quadrant)  

Zynga had 59 million average daily active users for the second quarter, down from 62 million in the first quarter but up from 48 million in the fourth quarter of 2010. This number tends to bounce around a lot, tied to the launches of new Zynga games, and the company said it didn’t launch any new big games in the first half of the year.

According to the IPO filing, Zynga’s revenue was $279.1 million in the three months ended June 30. That’s a 115% jump from the summer quarter in 2010. Not too shabby, at all, except the company’s revenue growth rate in the prior two quarters was 141% and 251%. (WSJ based on SEC findings)

Zynga is not in the games business, they are in the marketing intel business. They know everything about their customers – what makes them click, what doesnt’. Don’t think games, think marketing intelligence.

Fndamentals of an Online Community  

A big part of marketing intelligence is around your Influencers – who distributes your content well, to 100′s of thousands of members? By not having profiles or tracking the Leaders, News has nothing to offer marketers. I can in seconds figure out the Ripple Influencers on Google, Twitter and Facebook. By collecting and identifying Influencers, News would “own’ the relationship and be able to offer additional services to advertisers and marketers.

REVENUE TWO: Social Ads (bottom right diagram of Monetization graph)  

By comparison (to Zynga and their ilk), News.com can only offer contextual advertising not personalized advertising – what you are reading, not who you are. So if you are advertising your cars, do you want to put the ad next to an article that says “Car production in Japan drops due to Tsunami” article or do you want to put it in front of your target demographic – maybe men 22-29 years old, who like sport and live in Burwood? News.com does the former, Facebook can do that latter. How you write the copy for the ad depends on whether it’s Grandma buying a big ticket item e.g. a second hand car for grand daughter off to Uni or whether it’s an 18 year old boy buying his first car. Social Ads can be that direct.

Actually social ads can be in the top left corner of the graph as well – member to member. Then it’s Social Classifieds.

REVENUE THREE: App Economy (top right quadrant of Monetization graph)  

Facebook takes 30% of Zynga’s income. And every other game/app developer. So does Apple with their App Store. News.com is passing up a big opportunity by not offering their platform to 3rd party API developers to deliver pay for services to a community online.But if you don’t have a community (only readers) you can’t offer these types of services. It’s just that simple.

REVENUE FOUR: Peer to Peer Economy (top left quadrant of Monetization graph)  

Incredibly, they told us at the briefing that News.com invests in no peer to peer economy sites. I specifically asked about Trade.me and eBay competitors but was told “no”.

Rupert Murdoch, who once called classified revenues a “river of gold,” has changed his tune, saying: “Sometimes rivers dry up.” In an interview with the U.K.’s Press Gazette, he added, “I don’t know anybody under 30 who has ever looked at a classified advertisement in a newspaper.” (MarketWatch)

Rupert Murdoch then goes on to blame Craigslist. Which is a bit bizarre. Yes Craigslist does very well from free classifieds ($100 million in 2009). So, like, let’s give up? And it’s not free classifieds that dried up those Rivers of Gold. It was eBay. eBay making $9 billion in revenue in 2010 with 17,000 staff.

eBay stole the Classifieds crown by doing some basic things

1. Providing a profile and therefore reputation and trust. I can’t tell anything about the seller from a Classified but eBay solved that problem for me.
2. Providing an escrow payment process. If I’m not happy, Paypal protects me to $20,000. In contrast, if a Classifieds buyer cheque bounces, I’m on my own.
3. Providing community – I can find others that share my interest, connect with Leaders, check Reputation, am rewarded for Repeat Business and Longevity and so on.

News.com got lazy, stopped solving Problems and let the Rivers of Gold be diverted. Still not convinced?  have a look at a little crafts site called Etsy.com. 7 million dressmakers and craftspeople. 20-odd million buyers of crafts and dresses. $1 billion in revenue this year. Those Rivers didn’t dry up, they went elsewhere! Look at Open Outsourcing (Freelancer) for reasons why Recruitment ads plummeted. Look at peer to peer dating sites (RSVP) for ditto on dating.

Carsales.com and RealEstate.com are Commercial to Members (bottom right quadrant). How about some Member to Member (top left) revenue streams eh?

Finally, Value systems  

All of this will come down to: What do you value? Do you value authoritive original source articles? or do you want “authoritive aggregators”? Do you want to be a product of News.com and sold to advertisers or a member of a community buying and selling to other members? Will content on News.com become the News “iTunes”? But iTunes works because of multiple sources – amateur podcasters next to Top Gear, hobby musicians next to Lady Gaga. So many questions.

I think I’ve put up a little of my thinking, enough to chew over. Let me know if you find it tasty.

You might like SearchEngineLand testing of the New york Times paywall if you are a tiny bit geeky.

In 2009, I wrote about Seth Godin evangelising “engagement” to companies in social media yet turning off comments on his blog because in his words, people might “change his mind”. Which is actually the point of engagement, not selling more traditional books/products. He is very clear in his post – talk about my stuff, distribute my content elsewhere for discussion, but I can’t listen to you.

In Australia, Gov 2.0 promulgates engagement, yet it’s a case of listen to me talk about social media rather than this is how you engage with us.

So onwards with the story: the Victorian Department of Justice put up a video on their social media policy. As usual, for this stage of development, it’s full of the warnings.

Imagine an video about emails. Would you seriously tell people that they don’t represent the company in emails?  Not to email to clients or stakeholders? Not to telephone people in the name of the Department of Justice?  So telephone and media can be used for business by anyone in the organisation, but social media? Hell no! Note: This will change, just not yet.

Step 1 for engagement is: we don’t know what this is, we don’t know how to control it, we had better do something, oh I know, a social media policy that protects us while we figure it out. Mission accomplished, Department of Justice, Victoria! Step 3: let’s broadcast how fab we are, let’s use social channels to do it, but we won’t engage. Again, Mission Accomplished, Department of Justice, Victoria! (The other 7 steps to social media engagement).

• There is no mention of positive use of social media, no encouraging of staff to disseminate information or be what they do best – the public face of an organisation. It’s the old antiquated view:  “media training” educates how to do media interviews vs “social media training” which is what not to do. In this case, use social media for personal stuff and try not to let it overlap into work. Some of you are nodding your head, saying “fair enough”.  So, telephone and email with clients is fine, but social media is not? What about a How to Be a Great Ambassador for The Organisation section? Still no? Aaaah. So social media is about authorised people doing broadcast and every other staff member better be careful? I don’t think so.
• Which means the Policy is missing the bit “How to support your community online”. Which is the bit that tells us the voters, that we are being listened to, and engaged with, by a “whole of department” approach. The fact it’s missing means social media is not for a whole of department engagement with stakeholders tool. Shame.
• No mention of what to do with staff who see negative comments. For example, this post. If you work for the Department of Justice, Victoria, how do you feel about me critiquing your social media policy? Do you agree, disagree, couldn’t care less? Will you tell me so? Better not, might get into trouble. Who should you escalate it to? Don’t know? Policies shouldn’t leave staff disempowered.
• All in all it’s not a bad policy as policies go. Pretty common. The big issue I have with it is the next point – comments are turned off!

Our social media policy is: Shut Up and Listen

Always look at what organisations do, not say (works with potential boyfriends too!). We want to consult with the community does not stack up when comments are turned off. (Just like Darling I’m listening to you doesn’t ring true when the TV remote control is in hand.)

If you are staff, you know how to give feedback – after all, the Department of Justice, Victoria put the policy up on an internal blog or wiki, and asked for feedback. Didn’t they? They respect you, know they are treading on your Brand of One and have fully engaged with their internal community, you, their staff. Haven’t they? (Department of Justice, Victoria webpage on policies, no comments enabled). You can also look at my 40 Social Media Guidelines/Policies article for tips on how to introduce them into the organisation.

But as a voter, as a stakeholder, what’s your options? The Government that you have handed your voice to, the one you gave a vote to, and said represent me have just sent you back a clear and powerful message. You get the message because it’s on YOUR communiation channel, a social channel not a media channel. And social channels are for you to chat with other voters, stakeholders, influncers and generally be communicative. And what’s the Government’s message to you, the Voter? Why it’s… SHUT UP AND LISTEN.

Talk To The Hand

If you have a comment, observation, advice or question for the Department of Justice, Victoria, ask here. Cos you can’t on YouTube.

Or you can call

Further Information

Contact Jacqueline Page, Manager, Online Communication and New Media, Strategic Communication Branch for further information about the policy on 03 8684 0322

there is no email address…(from Information Page)

On a final note:  looking at that Information Page from the Department of Justice Victoria website, its about as far removed from a Social Media Press Release as you can possibly imagine. They haven’t even embedded their own YouTube video. It’s about the hardest webpage to distribute into communities as is feasible and still be on the web. If the video was for internal use, why is it tarted up by an agency and on YouTube and if it’s for pubic dissemination to protect the Department, why not do it properly?

Colour me confuzzled.

PS Dear Department of Justice, Victoria, if you had actually turned comments on, you’d have some control of the following conversation and the right of response. Now you have to rely on my good will…. muhahaha

EDIT:

FYI DoJ staff mentioned they do have a Twitter account @justice_vic. They have 1,500 followers but are only following 50 back and do not engage in conversations. Broadcast only e.g.:

Do your bit to #stopconmen. Call the hotline on 1300 133 408 to report a rip-off: http://bit.ly/pBf9Qp & follow @consumervic for more info

Final word: Governments that use “negative comments” or “lack of resources” (get better tools!) to abdicate their responsibility to voters in online community channels have become culturally irrelevant. #NoMoreExcuses

In this article, I’m looking at process vs product journalism, representational democracy falling over, the demise of capitalism, authoritarian aspects of traditional media AND online community hosts e.g. Twitter and the newly found power of Crowd Activism. Not bad for a Sunday morning in rainy Sydney!

Citizen Journalism is Process Journalism

Product journalism is traditional or heritage journalism. Every fact is checked, story arc is edited, mostly reported after the event even if only a few seconds, e.g. in a live cross, as one journalist filters what will be said to the community. Bloggers, Twitterers and others are involved in Process Journalism – the story is reported as it happens. Have a look at the tweet stream on the #occupywallstreet from a few minutes ago:

From 13 year olds to lawyers being arrested, to comments from the Military (Marine) personnel, to disgust at CNN (traditional media) and Twitter (community hosts) for censorship/non reportage, to citizens interviewing each other, the process reporting is building a story in 140 characters at a time.

With Product Journalism you sit back passive waiting for the story to be unfolded to you by one or two professionals. With Process Journalism, you click links to profiles and websites, checking facts for yourself. This Wall Street march has shifted the way we accept News now and forever more.

Why Governments Fear Social Media – the Demise of Representational Democracy

When David Cameron, UK Prime Minister announced the Government were in talks with Twitter and Blackberry and so on to stop or block social media re organised riots, it wasn’t because the Government truly believes social media is the cause of unrest and should be stopped.

Mr Cameron said talks were to be held with companies such as Twitter, BlackBerry and Facebook, as well as the intelligence services, to discuss actions that could limit their reach, to help prevent further disorder. Social networks were widely used by gangs to co-ordinate the riots across the country.

He wasn’t just ignoring the fact that Twitter was also being used to do cleanup. No sirree, it was the fact the #riotcleanup hashtag was potentially even more devastating than the riots itself to his Parliament. Why? Because communities only self organise when the incumbent organisers are ineffective (read: worthless). If the Police and Local Councils aren’t fixing the situation, then we will: thus spake the People. And once the People figure out they can self organise using online community tools, millions of people, why do we need Councils and Taxes?  From FixMyStreet to CatchALooter, we’ll sort it out ourselves, thanks very much.

NOTE: Representational Democracy arose in the time when a village nominated a runner to run around Ancient Greece to the big towns to cast a vote for the smaller community. Email and online voting does that a bit quicker these days. Do we really need a “representative” to collect our views and then filter them?  Must get back to Plato & The Republic one of these days.

David Cameron wasn’t being disingenuous. He was saving the political process as he knows it. Too little, too late in my book.

And in other news, San Francisco subway shuts down cellphone signals to stop social media organisation of civil protests and Braunschweig, Germany bans flash mobs (using Facebook to organise sudden demonstrations). Cleveland and Washington DC are trying to ban these social media organised demonstrations too. Even in Australia, QC David Galbally called for Facebook to be turned off during times of social unrest e.g. large court cases, in case we, the community, should choose to talk amongst ourselves. God Forbid.

Every time you allow the Government to “manage” or “moderate” your social communication channels, you are at risk of losing your civil liberties. Think airports and your civil liberties lost there, and you’ll know what I mean.

The NYPD, heroes of 9/11 are now under scrutiny. Random Tweets:

#JPMorganChase finances #NYPD brutality to the tune of $4 million.#BrooklynBridge #OccupyWallStreet

JPMORGAN CHASE Donates $4.6MILLION to NYPD. WHO ARE YOU SERVING NYPD WHO ARE YOU PROTECTING? #occupywallstreet #occupyportland

JPMorganChase buys NYPD for $4.6M. Did they have to pay sales tax? #OccupyWallStreet

Why Traditional Media Ignores or Reviles Social Media

From the sublime to the ridiculous ( my tweet below), The media, including CNN’s absence from the riot that started in New York and spread to LA is noted. The big questions:

• are traditional media throwing a hissy fit because social media is upping the competition?  Yes traditional media and social media are in competition, hence all the “social media is for predators,rioters, time wasters and stalkers” stories.
• Slow, cumbersome, or just stupid and not monitoring social media for stories (BBC is vindicated)? No longer relevant?
• Funded by big business, in bed with Government so rendered toothless or worse? Who can we trust ?
• Trying to calm things down – if so what happened to impartial reporting?

ShortFormBlog has a post analysing how traditional media is covering (or not) the Occupy Wall Street story. Fox ignores the demonstrations while the New York Times reporter Natasha Lennard is arrested. America the Land of the Free*

*unless you demonstrate against big business.

Here’s some tweets:

• From @SilkCharm (me!) : Dear Mrs Media, CNN did not attend today. Please contact us with a certificate or explanation. Regards, We the People
• From @CohenD: Call @CNN at 404-827-1500 if you’d like to suggest more coverage of #occupywallstreet (press 1 at prompts to speak to a real person)
• From @bewoot: @CNN So, I guess all your cameras are broken and your reporters off getting a bite to eat? Do your job. #occupywallstreet #occupyla #p2
• From @tonyescobar1: Big business runs the media cartels. Proof is in the black out of media coverage on #OccupyWallStreet protests #BrooklynBridge

Social Media starts to too early for Product Journalism. “We are going to riot/meet/demonstrate” statements are missed. “Proper” journalism starts too late in the process for social media and must forever play catchup.

The challenge for traditional media is to keep selling the story that we should tell them our stories so that they can sell them back to the community for a profit. Tough sell.

I like it when journalists get involved. Observations of a Jailed Journalist is the most compelling reading on OccupyWallStreet list.

On Sept. 24, while working on a story about citizen journalism for my employer, I found myself arrested, along with many other people. My arrest gave me a unique vantage point on the risks and rewards of citizen journalists, those non-professionals who capture stories (usually without pay) using videos and images via portable technology like a cell phone camera. Anyone, even a passerby or a police officer can be a citizen journalist. That’s its power.

From the women shoppers crying as they are arrested while buying magazines to the arrested innocents listening to the activists in jail and deciding to join them, the insider story has never been more compelling.

Livestreaming the revolution. No wonder the NYPD is arresting anyone with a camera. Obvious fact, but some of the best bloggers are journalists – once they forget their education and go with their experience.

Impartiality be damned.

PS ex Blog now Trad Media site Huffington Post put a call out:

Move over Government, There’s a new Governing Body in Town

Representational democracy means taking your voice and handing it over to a small group of people to represent the masses. Very important when communication tools are primitive. Less so with social communication online. But we are so used to this idea of a Higher Power (no, not Him, Government) that we are passive when confronted with Faceless powerbrokers hiding behind our elected reps. I’m not doing the conspiracy theory thing – but go ahead, feel free to fill in the blanks – just stating facts “there is politics in Politics”.

So when we see Twitter blocking the #occupywallstreet hashtag in America, we should start probing if it’s true. Start here I reckon.

The right hand side is where Twitter displays trending topics – what people are talking about. As I’m blogging this DURING the demonstrations, I don’t yet have at hand the tweets per second, but hey! it’s a lot. More and faster than I followed during the UK riots, more than #ArabSpring more than #mumbaibombings.

Warning: If you go to Trendsmap.com you get the image below, complete with USA missing the hashtag. But zoom in to see #OccupyWallstreet state by state. So it is showing up on Trendsmap, just not across the Nation.

Total tweets overall 1billion a week or 1650 per second (PC World)

OccupyWallStreet currently 0.57% of all tweets. OccupyWallStreet is approximately 100 tweets per second.
(0.057 * 5 940 000 = 338,600 per hour or 94 tweets a second)

So the question is: is Twitter blocking acknowledgement of tweets under duress or to keep Twitter downwind of any claims of it being a terrorist, subversive tool? Who cares, if they are blocking discussion, they are in for a big shock. Digg started censoring discussions on a legal issue and found themselves at war with millions of members. See The Hole That Digg Dug.  Twitter-as-Governing-Body-of-A-Community may find themselves in the same pile of poo. We have laws against censorship in the “real” world – the community will not accept censorship from any online governing body either. Except of course when we are blind and oblivious to our own social rituals around censorship and taboo….

The Crowd Feels It’s Power

This is just the start. The Ripple effect sees content move from Twitter to YouTube to Facebook to Livestream to Tumblr, to Google Plus. Opposite of Las Vegas – what goes on Twitter doesn’t stay on Twitter!

And while marketers are hurrying to write posts on “what we can learn from #OccupyWallStreet to activate our customer” posts, just remember, the client may create an anti brand activity against your brand much more easily than you can create a social media marketing campaign.

The challenge to authority is absolute. The Government MUST obey it’s people or it no longer represents them and becomes a dictatorship. The Army, Marines, NYPD MUST decide where they sit in uprisings – with the crowd or against them.

Or you could just buy the protestors pizza:

(remember, 46 retweets doesn’t mean 46 people saw it, it means 46 networks of 1000 – 100,000 members each got passed the message in 12 minutes)

There is so much more to write but I need to get back to watching videos, reading tweets, distributing blog posts, Facebooking comments and I might give Malcolm Gladwell’s The New Yorker article “Why The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted” another read.

Filed Under #WillNeverHappenHere #NothingToSeeMoveAlongPlease