Lubetkin on Communications (Formerly "Lubetkin's Other Blog")

Don’t assume that social media is an age thing, it’s a knowledge thing

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:37:42 PST

I was meeting a new business connection for coffee in the Barnes & Noble store near Deptford, NJ a couple of weeks ago, and while I was waiting for her, I saw a father and his young son in the cafe taking their food order to the table.

It was a mid-week morning, and on their tray was a toasted bagel and butter and a chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing.

It reminded me of when my dad used to go to the bakery and the newsstand on weekends and come home with hard rolls for him and my mom, and chocolate cupcakes for me.

Do not ever assume you know what is happening.

When they sat down, the dad passed the bagel across the table to his son, who started munching happily while the dad enjoyed the cupcake.

It continues to disturb and frustrate me that people who position themselves as experts in something get press coverage or blog space and then use it to completely misunderstand the space in which they claim expertise.

There have been lots of blog posts and even some news articles recently suggesting that only people in their 20s understand “social media” (you know, the online networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and the blogs, and Twitter,and all that other stuff.)

I am really offended by the theme of these blog posts and articles. In the Chicago Tribune piece, some young professional suggested that younger people can teach older professionals about social media because, for one reason, they use AOL’s Instant Messenger client eight hours a day.

What?

I’m going to say it explicitly here. I posted these comments on both the PRSA blog post and on the Chicago Tribune site, but I think I need to say it here too.

Just because someone is young does NOT mean they understand “social media” or some other technology better than someone with a few more years in the business.

I’ve had an email address on my business card since 1988.

I started participating in online conferencing and networking through CompuServe in 1984 when high-speed connections were 1200 bps modems.

I’ve been counselling my various senior managements and clients about the Internet since the early 1990s.

Did I mention that I graduated from the University of Phoenix’s online MBA program in 1994, long before any major university even considered having a course or two online?

Even earlier than that -- possibly even before the parents of some of these 20 somethings were out of diapers -- in 1977 I was one of two reporters (for the record, Bob Williams, still an editor at the Asbury Park Press was the other one) who lugged a 60-pound “portable” computer terminal onto a helicopter to be flown into a Grateful Dead concert where we filed our stories by connecting that terminal to an acoustic modem coupler and then placed the telephone handset into the coupler to do the transmission.

I also remember mimeographs and Group 1 fax machines that took 6 minutes a page and you had to manually insert the thermal paper one page at a time.

The leading technologies of their day!

We used to hate it when Congressman Jim Howard’s press secretary would call the newspaper to fax us a three-page press release that would tie us up by the machine for 20 minutes – if all the pages came through on the first try without disconnecting.

Rep. James J. Howard, second from left, greets teachers and students from Oceanport, NJ schools during the 1970 8th grade class trip to Washington. With Howard are Clement Jablonski, left; Rosemary McCartney, and Donald Byrne, teachers chaperoning the trip.
(Steve Lubetkin photo. Copyright ©1970, 2009. All rights reserved.)

My age doesn’t make me incapable of understanding new communications channels when they come along.

My 20-something children make fun of me because I use Twitter — they don’t use it at all, and my youngest daughter (age 20) has very little interest in posting on Facebook.

And if these so-called social media experts would bother to do a smidgen of research, they would know that the fastest adopting demographic on Facebook from September 2008 to February 2009 was overwhelmingly women over 55.

Do you really think the best equipped group to communicate with that demographic are 20-somethings?

So much for the millenials being the key to PR nirvana in the social media, huh?

Facebook Guantanamo

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:58:02 PDT

Last November, we essentially threw out our government for a new one, and one of the main reasons was that we didn’t like that they were holding people in secret prisons without telling them why they were detained, or the charges against them.

But boy, when we get stars in our social media eyes about some darling of the networking space, no matter what they do, it just rolls off them, doesn’t it?

Let’s see. Facebook shuts down your account without warning or explanation. They ignore emails. They don’t even provide a phone number to call them.

And we continue to love them? Why?

Facebook gets the Guantanamo award from this blog for its ham-handed approach to alleged violations of its rules.

Here’s an excerpt from the email I just sent to the Electronic Frontier Foundation asking for help. I will let you know if it does any good at all.

Good evening. I'm a 53-year old former corporate PR executive, running my own social media consultancy for the past five years. I have used Facebook to promote my expertise and activities, until 20 days ago when Facebook, without any warning or explanation, disabled my account.

I'm not sure, but I suspect that some idiot playing one of those insipid "Mafia Wars" games somehow injected it into my contact list (despite my previous configuration of my Facebook profile to ignore all of those games) and it may have spammed a bunch of people. I don't know for sure, I can only speculate, because I haven't been able to get into my account.

But hey, I am a grown up, you know?

That's not how I would operate my business, and I shouldn't be penalized because Facebook allows its users to play those stupid games.

And if any company that we depended on for mission critical business applications treated its users with this much disdain, people would be outside corporate headquarters with torches and pitchforks. Can you imagine what Michael Moore would do if they disabled his account?

Repeated emails from me to disabled@facebook.com have been ignored or received auto-replies that promise a response that never arrives.

This is like a Kafka novel. I don't know why they disabled my account, they won't tell me anything, they won't reply to emails, and there's nowhere to call.

I know Facebook is a "free" social networking site, but it seems a bit lopsided that they get to make these arbitrary decisions without explaining themselves or offering recourse, and meanwhile they get to collect billions of dollars in advertising revenue by selling the knowledge they've collected from us "free" users.

Why are we treating Facebook with such kid gloves?

Why is YouTube the only video site clients ask about?

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:57:43 PDT

Since we began producing video podcast content for clients four years ago, I’m often asked about posting the content on YouTube.

I usually try to persuade my clients NOT to post their content there, for two reasons.

First, the YouTube Terms of Use agreement that no one ever really reads too carefully contains what I regard as confiscatory claims of ownership of the content.

Despite what they say in public statements and news releases, the actual legal agreement claims ownership of pretty much everything you post there.

What that means is that – absent a separate, superceding legal agreement with YouTube -- a company with valuable intellectual property is in danger of losing ownership of processes or procedures they discuss, trademarks, service marks, logos, taglines, etc., if they post the material to YouTube.

Yes, I know it hasn’t been tested in court, but what company would volunteer to be the test case if they truly understood the exposure they face?

It also means that YouTube owns anything slightly newsworthy that you post, like video of President Obama visiting your neighborhood restaurant. So, if CNN decides to use that footage, they pay YouTube a license fee for the broadcast, but you get nothing.

In addition to these legal and financial concerns, PR people and others who make YouTube central to a social media strategy need to get the “viral video” stars out of their eyes and think more like brand owners.

YouTube is full of a lot of nonsense video, people whacking themselves with rubber chickens, inappropriate videos of kids waking up from anesthesia after oral surgery, celebs behaving badly.

It strikes me as being mainly a collection of the worst excesses in amateur video.

To me, it's a mostly honky-tonk neighborhood where professionally produced videos designed to promote businesses almost always get lost -- because most of YouTube is obsessed with the wild chase to be the next "viral" video showing something silly.

Let’s face it, you cannot deliberately create a viral video, like the spontaneous one of the little girl who threw the foul ball back onto the field.

Despite all of these problems, many people think YouTube is the "go-to" place for distributing any kind of business videos.

As a PR professional, I always try to counsel my clients to consider and use the most appropriate communications channel for their business outreach.

My questions to all my clients are these:

1. Does it really advance the brand of your organization to have a house in the same neighborhood as all that other stuff?

2. Is it because YouTube is the video platform with which you are most familiar, and therefore the one you think you need to be on?

3. What exactly are you trying to achieve by thinking about having the video on YouTube? Is it just because you think it makes it easier to send a link to other people, which we can already help you do, or is there some other reason?

4. What is the real "value" to you of YouTube specifically?

Again, the reason I raise these questions is because I want clients to put the best foot forward for their businesses, and without knowing why YouTube is on their radar, I can't give the best advice.

My gut instinct is that most businesses are better served having their carefully produced videos available on a different, less comic/less unprofessional platform.

What do you think?

Do you think YouTube is a good (or bad) place to post business video? Why do you feel that way?

Comments please!

LOC Podcast #41: A conversation with Don Middleberg about the Second Annual Middleberg/SNCR Global Survey of Media in the Wired World

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:37:06 PDT

In this episode of the Lubetkin on Communications Podcast, we present a conversation with Don Middleberg about the Second Annual Middleberg/SNCR Global Survey of Media in the Wired World.

A press release about this year’s study is on the SNCR website.

Don broke new ground in the early 1990s surveying journalists about their use of the Internet and the emerging technology of the World Wide Web. For years, his Middleberg-Ross Survey, conducted with the Columbia School of Journalism, provided important information on how journalists were using these new tools.

The survey was revived under sponsorship of the Society for New Communications Research last year. Results of last year’s study are available here.

Journalists can complete this year’s study at http://www.sncr-middleberg-2009survey.com.questionpro.com/

Listen to the podcast here:

Download the podcast program here (Stereo MP3 file, 14.2 mb, duration 00:14:33)

Subscribe to the RSS feed for the “Lubetkin on Communications” podcast series.

Apple iPod owners, subscribe to the “Lubetkin on Communications” podcast series in the Apple iTunes Music Store.

Keywords: lubetkin, cherry hill, sncr, middleberg, study, journalists

Technorati Tags: lubetkin,cherry hill,sncr,middleberg,study,journalists

del.icio.us Tags: lubetkin,cherry hill,sncr,middleberg,study,journalists

Produced in the studios of Professional Podcasts LLC, Cherry Hill, NJ.

LOC Podcast #40: A reminiscence of the GG-1 Locomotive, with David Kwechansky

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:07:40 PDT

Editor’s Note: We have renamed our podcast to match the new branding of our blog. “Lubetkin on Communications” better captures the goal of our blog and podcast series, which is to provide a forum for discussion of important communications and public relations issues with newsmakers in the field.

But in this episode, we depart from our coverage of public relations to chat with an old friend, David Kwechansky of Toronto, about the most famous electric locomotive in railroading history, the GG-1.

David commissioned Grif Teller, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s legendary calendar artist, to paint the image above for David’s personal collection.

Then he got a bright idea.

Wouldn’t it be cool to ask NJ Transit for a ride on that exact GG-1 locomotive?

I was doing public relations for Conrail. Conrail was the contract operator of commuter rail service for NJ Transit in New Jersey when I was assigned to make the arrangements for David’s engine ride. David’s journey to New Jersey to ride GG-1 #4884 and pick up his painting from Grif Teller’s Little Falls, NJ, studio were the subject of an extensive article in Trains Magazine in December 1981.

Three years later, “PodWife” Judy and I got to ride in the cab of GG-1 #4877 when NJ Transit sponsored a special railfan excursion to celebrate the retirement of the last GG-1 from regular rail service. There were several railfan rides on October 29, 1983, but Judy and I were lucky enough to be in the cab on the very last run of the day…and I had a microcassette recorder with me to capture some of the sounds – decades before podcasting became available.

Listen to the podcast here:

Download the podcast program here (Two-channel mono MP3 file, 54.3 mb, duration 00:43:22.)

Subscribe to the RSS feed for the “Lubetkin on Communications” podcast series.

Apple iPod owners, subscribe to the “Lubetkin on Communications” podcast series in the Apple iTunes Music Store.

Keywords: lubetkin, nj, new jersey, gg-1, railroad, loewy, locomotive, electric, penn central, nj transit, prr, kwechansky, trains magazine, grif teller, painting, trains, railfan

del.icio.us Tags: lubetkin,nj,new jersey,gg-1,railroad,loewy,locomotive,electric,penn central,nj transit,prr,kwechansky,trains magazine,grif teller,painting,trains,railfan

Technorati Tags: lubetkin,nj,new jersey,gg-1,railroad,loewy,locomotive,electric,penn central,nj transit,prr,kwechansky,trains magazine,grif teller,painting,trains,railfan

Produced in the studios of Professional Podcasts LLC, Cherry Hill, NJ.

Integrated newsroom at Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is a long way from my radio news days…

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:25:23 PDT

Tod Maffin of the CBC, who is an internationally known keynote speaker on how social media is changing the mainstream media – and other companies too – has posted a fascinating video tour of the new CBC integrated newsroom in Vancouver, BC.

Behind the Scenes at CBC Vancouver's new "integrated newsroom" from Tod Maffin on Vimeo.

The world Tod and his guest, Johnny Michel, regional news director, CBC Vancouver, describe and tour in this extensive video is a far cry from my own experiences in the nearly integrated radio and print newsroom of the Asbury Park (NJ) Press and its “Radio Voice,” WJLK-AM & FM, in the 1970s.

The WJLK radio newsroom was in a small cubbyhole adjacent to the newspaper’s main newsroom on the second floor of Press Plaza in Asbury Park. The newspaper has since moved the newsroom to a more modern facility on Route 66 that’s technically in Neptune Township, not Asbury Park. The privately held newspaper sold out to Gannett when the owning families discovered just how much those estate taxes were going to be, and the radio station was sold years ago.

Print reporters were instructed to provide “carbons” of their stories to radio news for rewrite into broadcast form.

Later, when the paper became one of the first in New Jersey to computerize in the mid-1970s, the Extel dot-matrix printers connected to the newsroom computer system were loaded with rolls of yellow paper/carbon sandwiches, and reporters continued to dutifully provide the carbon copies to radio news.

But unlike the close collaboration among online, TV and radio news gatherers at the CBC that Johnny and Tod describe in the video above, the print editors and radio news apparently didn’t keep in close touch at the Press/WJLK.

In the 1960s, the radio station had been a sort of sleepy programming backwater populated with locally produced programs like “Alarm Clock Club” and “The Bird Watchers’ Club.” They even substituted a daily recap of the obituaries from that day’s Press instead of a 2pm newscast.

The newspaper obits carried a slugline promoting the reading of the death notices on the radio.

In the mid-1970s, new programming management at the radio station replaced the local programs with automated top-40 music from the legendary Drake-Chenault music syndicator. The obits were no longer read on the radio at 2pm.

But apparently, no one ever told the print newsroom. For years after the obit-cast was cancelled, we still had to plow through piles of carbons of obits dutifully provided by the print newsroom.

No one ever wanted to tell them to stop providing them, for fear that they would withhold real news stories too!

LOC Podcast #39: A conversation with Rebecca Timms, 2009-2010 National President of the Public Relations Student Society of America

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:02:24 PDT

We have renamed our podcast to match the new branding of our blog. “Lubetkin on Communications” better captures the goal of our blog and podcast series, which is to provide a forum for discussion of important communications and public relations issues with newsmakers in the field.

In this episode of the “Lubetkin on Communications Podcast” we present a conversation with Rebecca Timms of Haddon Heights, NJ, a Rowan University junior who is serving as 2009-2010 national president of the Public Relations Student Society of America. Read Rebecca’s official biography on the PRSSA website.

Listen to the podcast here:

Download the podcast program here (stereo MP3 file, 24.6 mb, duration 00:23:40.)

Subscribe to the RSS feed for the “Lubetkin on Communications” podcast series.

Apple iPod owners, subscribe to the “Lubetkin on Communications” podcast series in the Apple iTunes Music Store.

Keywords: lubetkin, rebecca timms, prssa, public relations student society of america, rowan university, nj, new jersey

Technorati Tags: lubetkin,rebecca timms,prssa,public relations student society of america,rowan university,nj,new jersey

del.icio.us Tags: lubetkin,rebecca timms,prssa,public relations student society of america,rowan university,nj,new jersey

Produced in the studios of Professional Podcasts LLC, Cherry Hill, NJ.

Twitter Chat about Podcasting

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:14:44 PDT

Last night, I appeared as the guest on #SmallBizChat, a weekly chat session that uses Twitter.com as its channel of communications. I interacted with the two hosts and the guests by "tweeting" my responses to questions about the value of podcasting for small businesses.

It reminded me of the very old days of "online" when members of the PRSIG group on CompuServe would fire up their dial-up modems and connect to a "CO" or "conference" and chat over very slow speed connections. Except Twitter is a rapid-fire universe of multiple comments and questions coming at you nonstop. It was a very exhilarating but exhausting hour. Here's a link to the transcript of the chat.

SmallBizChat_7-22-09.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Posted using ShareThis

Hey, Where Did That Book Go?

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:50:46 PDT

I’ve been having some back-and-forth debates with folks about certain rock musicians exercising their rights to protect copyrighted music that people have expropriated for their YouTube videos and other uses where they didn’t get permission or pay for the privilege. But this move by Amazon defies all logic.

Big Brother: Amazon Remotely Deletes 1984 From Kindles
Pete Cashmore
Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:57:30 GMT

Sustainable Jersey Green Grants Press Conference, 6/22/2009

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:50:04 PDT

Click to Play

This is the complete Sustainable Jersey press conference held June 22, 2009 in Trenton, NJ to announce the awarding of $200,000 in Green Grants funded by Walmart Stores, to 14 NJ municipalities. Four towns received $25,000 grants for sustainability projects, and 10 towns received $10,000 grants. The video includes remarks by New Jersey sustainability leaders and state officials, and the annoucements of the specific grants. Produced for Walmart Stores by Success Communications Group (successcommgroup.com) and Professional Podcasts LLC.

Leadership NJ Press Conference 6/22/2009

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:47:34 PDT

Click to Play

Leadership New Jersey held a press conference at the New Jersey State House to announce a partnership with News 12 New Jersey TV to produce a debate between candidates for the new lieutenant governor position created by New Jersey voters. Tom Dallessio, executive director of Leadership NJ, hosts the presentation. This video was produced by Professional Podcasts LLC.

Bankers conference highlights opportunities, pitfalls of social networking

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:45:01 PDT

Bankers conference highlights opportunities, pitfalls of social networking

Shared via AddThis

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:08:47 PDT

is finishing up production on some pods today.

Mobile post sent by stevelubetkin using Utterli. Replies.

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:02:05 PDT

is in the studio today, editing audio, burning DVDs, great day of meetings in NYC yesterday.

Mobile post sent by stevelubetkin using Utterli. Replies.

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Tue, 26 May 2009 02:42:43 PDT

is recording client pods in Lower Manhattan this am, appearing on Social Media Hour on BlogTalkRadio @ 1pm EDT http://is.gd/uVtt

Mobile post sent by stevelubetkin using Utterli. Replies.

Drexel University PRSSA Panel: Breaking Boundaries, The Revolution of Social Media

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Sat, 23 May 2009 10:49:14 PDT

Click to Play

The Drexel University Chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) presents "Breaking Boundaries: The Revolution of Social Media," a panel discussion held May 5, 2009 in the Bossone Auditorium at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

Panelists

Gloria Bell, Red Stapler Consulting
Steve Lubetkin, Managing Partner, Professional Podcasts LLC
Valeria Maltoni, ConversationAgent Blog
Scott McNulty, Chief Blogger, Comcast
Katie Shields, Vice President and Managing Partner, Vault Communications

Moderator
Rick Alcantara, Tara Communications

Videography

Juán “Chedigitz” Vazquez

Post-production

Professional Podcasts LLC

Family Continues Search and Rescue Effort for NJ Man, Joe Dunsavage

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:05:26 PDT

Click to Play

Joe Dunsavage, an Edison NJ resident, remains missing at sea since disappearing off Roatan Island, Honduras a week ago Sunday. Military search and rescue efforts have been called off, but Dunsavage's family continues to pay for search efforts out of their own pocket, appealing for donations and information from the worldwide Internet community. Steve Lubetkin of Professional Podcasts interviews Joe Dunsavage's brother Jeff, and father Ed, who are spearheading the search efforts.

Thank you, Rick Derringer. Now I know I’m on the right track…

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Fri, 15 May 2009 04:07:27 PDT

Rock legend Rick Derringer told BlogTalkRadio that Internet radio was the future of radio. Phew! I have been telling that to clients and audiences for months. I feel vindicated. I don’t think satellite radio will ultimately survive. It’s too expensive to keep sending the Space Shuttle up there to change the blinking red lights on the satellites. (OK, I’m kidding. But it is way too expensive to pay for transponder space to beam words and music back to earth.) Once someone figures out the WiMax issue of making it as easy to tune Internet radio coast-to-coast in a car, no one will want a sat radio. Not with 10,000 streams of all kinds available from all over the world.

Yes, Sirius/XM will keep its beautiful studios and still produce programming, but without the crushing financial burden of those satellites. (Dave Bowman, Star Child? Need you to do a little house cleaning please.)

Some quotes from the BlogTalkRadio Blog…

“Those days of radio, people figure, are gone because radio is so controlled and it’s so big – Clear Channel and all those stations – it’s programmed and it’s so controlled that that can’t happen anymore.

“Radio stations, no matter how big they are – the terrestrial stations, we call them – are limited by the output of their transmitter, which means they can only be heard within a certain given metropolitan area,” he says.

“These stations, like the one we’re on now can be heard everywhere in the world.”

To head Rick’s full interview, click here.

Rock Legend Rick Derringer: ‘Internet Radio Is the Wave of the Future’
Philip Recchia
Thu, 14 May 2009 23:04:19 GMT

Compuschmooze columnist "PodcastSteve" seeking r

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:11:35 PST

My March column is about audio and video social media tools. How do you use Utterli? Do you use any others?

Mobile post sent by stevelubetkin using Utterli. Replies.

Weighing in on Facebook's Terms of Service

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 03:00:11 PST

Since yesterday's firestorm of opposition to the recent changes in FaceBook's terms of service (TOS) agreement, the social networking website has recognized its error. They've rolled back the problematic legal agreement that very clearly claimed perpetual ownership of content produced by Facebook users, even if they deleted their accounts. They are now rewriting the TOS. We'll be very interested in what they come up with.

Much of the commentary from Facebook supporters focused on the myth of online privacy. Many of us who were unhappy with the change of terms were not worried about privacy, we are content producers who zealously protect our copyright and the copyrights of our clients, and the changes were problematic for that reason. And the problem with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's "clarification" of what they meant to do is, it's not a legal agreement, it's his interpretation. But what he said they meant to do is NOT what the TOS change said. The change said they had a license to use everything you posted any way they wanted.

This is NOT about privacy concerns. I gave those up long ago when I embraced online life.

We understand that if you post something online it is pretty much there forever -- I wrote an email post in a USENET Group in 1992 that still seems to be the earliest online use of the phrase "e-business." It's there for anyone who wants to Google it. Forever.

This is about who owns what I create -- and what you create. Just because it's "only a photo of Aunt Tillie" doesn't mean you should give up your rights to that photo. You made it, you own it.

Like many independent consultants, I make my living from the content I create for myself and for clients. That means podcasts, video podcasts, photos, writing articles, anything else I can sell as part of my services. It's valuable to me and my company's brand to share a lot of this content online, on sites like Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook.

I am willing to have my content promoted, distributed, highlighted, shared on these sites. I am not willing to allow these sites to say they own my content and can sell it without sharing those proceeds with me in a reasonable way.

When George Lucas was asked about YouTube (whose users seem oblivious to its similarly confiscatory TOS claiming ownership of every video you post there), Lucas responded "I'm always amazed at how many people are willing to work for nothing."

That's what you do when you post content to sites that claim ownership. You work for nothing. They grow and gain in advertising value with the content you create. Advertisers want eyeballs, and sites get eyeballs by having content people want. They should share that revenue with the content creators in a meaningful way. Not "if we get 10 million hits on your content we'll give you $20."

Here's the content of a note I posted to Mark Zuckerberg at FaceBook this morning:

Mark, thanks for having second thoughts about listening to the lawyers on the TOS. The clause they wrote was a clear rights grab from the perspective of those of us who create content intending to profit from it, like podcasts I produce for clients, videos I produce for profit, and my writing. That's how I make my living. I don't give anyone perpetual rights to anything without compensation, and despite your "clarifications" of what you intended that isn't what your legal terms stated.

The problem is that we live in a world where it's not your intentions that govern the relationship, it's the legalese. People can try to diminish the importance of the TOS any way they want, but that is the governing agreement. If you don't intend to own our personally generated (and copyrighted) content forever, then you have to say so in the TOS, not let the lawyers write a perpetual license that gives you effective control over that work product.

I suggest you get input from intellectual property experts outside your law department -- especially from professional writer groups, professional photography and video trade associations, and other trade groups interested in protecting the copyrights of their members. There ought to be a reasonable middle ground in which content producers can be comfortable that posting a link to their work product on FaceBook doesn't strip them of their rights to profit from their work.

Just because millions of people give up the rights to their videos by posting them on YouTube doesn't mean all of us want to work totally for free. We display our work to you and our friends because it's part of the overall online strategy for our personal brands, and so people know what we are working on. But things change. As the commercial says, "Life comes at you fast," and we need to know that if we change our minds and part ways with FaceBook, we really part ways.

Looking forward to continuing the dialogue!

Steve "PodcastSteve" Lubetkin

As a free society, we've always placed value on the creative energy of content producers -- whether they are superstar blockbuster authors or just ink-stained struggling wretches who celebrate the $25 stringer fee they earned from filing a story with a wire service.

Do we really care so little about the rights of content creators that we want them to shut up because being able to Poke and SuperPoke people is a higher priority?

What do you think?

Jeff Pulver Welcoming Remarks, Philadelphia Real-World Social Media Tagging Breakfast, 2/5/09

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:05:18 PST

Click to Play

Jeff Pulver's Real-World Social Media Tagging Breakfast in Philadelphia on February 5 included short remarks by Jeff about why he began creating opportunities for social media participants to meet each other in the real world, and the tools he thought might be helpful to get people to engage each other in real interactions and conversations.

La Nueva Frontera Digital, multimedia conference for journalists, 1/31/2009

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:03:57 PST

Click to Play

Steve "PodcastSteve" Lubetkin of Professional Podcasts was a panel presenter at La Nueva Frontera Digital conference at Temple University on Saturday, 31 January 2009, sponsored by the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. This short video report contains scenes from the conference including excerpts from presentations by Ju-Don Roberts of WashingtonPost.com; Bill Rowland of the Philly Food Guys Podcast; Dan Levy and Nick Tarnowski of the On the DL Podcast, and interviews with Sarah Glover, staff photographer of the Philadelphia Daily News and Regina Medina of the Philadelphia Inquirer, co-chairs of the conference.

MediaBistro panel on social media and traditional media focuses on “monetization”

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:03:31 PST

MediaBistro.com held a conference panel on “Journalists and Social Media” this week. You can read Paulina Reso’s summary of the event at the Fishbowl NY blog. They included this post-game analysis video with people who attended the event, and the theme of their comments seems to be “how the heck do you make money off of this stuff?”

Take a look at the video and add your comments and suggestions for how to “monetize” social media…

Post to claim new Technorati blog listing

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 12:59:27 PST

Need to claim this new location on Technorati.

Technorati Profile

Penn Central 1974 - The Movie

steve@lubetkin.net (Steven L. Lubetkin (steve@lubetkin.net)) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:58:52 PST

This is the movie commissioned by the Penn Central Railroad bankruptcy trustees to try to convince members of Congress that the railroad desperately needed a cash infusion or some other federal intervention if the railroad were to survive.

Think of it as the social media of its day, a corporate movie commissioned as a way of educating elected officials who had little time or inclination to actually visit the railroad to find out what was going on.

In fairness, there are some anecdotes I've heard about the making of this movie, including the fact that some of the really bad conditions just wouldn't cooperate with the filmmakers. So instead of showing actual "standing derailments" (derailments caused by crossties so rotted that the rails just spread apart under the weight of the freight cars), they actually had to stage some of them.

There is a scene of a car derailing as it moves down the "hump" track in a classification yard, and I'm told it took more than one take to get it to derail.

Despite these moviemaker tricks, the facts were pretty bleak for Penn Central.

And the movie did help convince Congress to do the only right thing.

Take control of the company and the other bankrupt railroads, and make something new. Conrail. And considering what the car companies are asking for as an INTERIM solution for just the next three months ($15 billion), Conrail was a bargain at $7.6 billion -- all in.

That's pretty much where the auto industry should be headed. Even as I was preparing this blog entry, I came across the daily agenda in the previous entry showing that GMAC is still taking folks out for expensive breakfast meetings, even as its owners go begging the taxpayers for a handout.

Enough bailout money, we need to nationalize these turkeys and impose a Conrail style solution once again.

del.icio.us Tags: conrail,penn central,railroad,auto industry,general motors,ford,chrysler,bailout,federal intervention,bankruptcy