Unjournalism

(A note about the headline to old people who might read this: “FTW” means “for the win.” Think golf: “The Shankman sinks the big putt - for the win!”)

PRNewser provides a brief write-up about Peter Shankman’s “Help a Reporter” Web site, a good-karma-earning project in which the Shankman (doesn’t the “the” make him sound at least three times cooler?) fields requests from reporters looking for people to talk about, well, anything. The Shankman then compiles and shares those requests for resources with a community of somewhere around 1,200 or so (last I heard) public relations folks.

This Web site actually works its magic in one of the oldest forms of “social media”: a massive, e-mail distribution list. Remember those? Came around a few years before RSS and wikis and the like? Yeah?

HelpAReporter.com started as a group on Facebook.

Read those last couple of lines again. As bloggers tend to say when they’re trying to be funny about stuff like this, I’ll wait…

You back? OK. Did you catch it? Facebook, the darling of so many social networking junkies and social media consultants and so many other people who say “social” a lot, drove away a very successful, purposeful group that embodies exactly what social networking is supposed to be. Drove it away to an e-mail distribution list.

Way to go Facebook.

This happened because, as PRNewser mentioned, Facebook puts a limit on the number of Facebookers who can receive direct messages, sort of like an “internal e-mail” unique to the Facebook system. The Shankman’s group quickly outgrew that limit.

I’m sure there’s (probably) a reason for that and other limits, but probably not a very good one, especially if you’re Facebook and you’re trying to take over the Web. Plus, the Shankman really should want to be on Facebook to help his group grow. I know coverage on the NY Times site can help, but so can a link in my Facebook news feed that says, “[Friend's name] has joined ‘If I can help a reporter out, I will…’” That’s how I learned about it months ago. The power of that spread is not to be underestimated.

On a related subject: The folks who run ProfNet apparently hate Peter Shankman. ProfNet is a service from the PR Newswire that does basically the exact same thing HelpAReporter.com does. Two differences: It looks a little bit prettier and costs thousands of dollars. For kicks, I’ll remind you that the Shankman seeks no money, just good karma.

ProfNet has no ground to stand on. It’s not kosher to take content from ProfNet and share it with thousands of others who aren’t paying for it. But there’s nothing stopping a reporter from submitting a call for help to both ProfNet and ShankmanNet to improve his or her odds of success. Maybe ProfNet will find some other way to succeed in the long run.

Tags: Facebook, social networking by Mike Keliher
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Yesterday I saw an item in which the writer, Clarence Westberg, referred to Pownce, the “similar to but not the same as Twitter” microblogging tool, as a “social network.” (Actually, he called Pownce a “worthless social network,” but that’s a separate issue.)

This simple statement got me thinking: What makes a “social network,” in the online sense? And, of course, the related question: Why does this word parsing matter, if at all?

To kick off my thinking on this issue, I informed my Twitter crew:

I’m intrigued by people who refer to things like Twitter as a social network. Is a blog a social network because it has your picture on it?

Sort of a snarky statement, but the responses, which came quick and often, turned me from silly to thoughtful. I had always reserved the label “social network” for those sites that centered on the profile, a quality Facebook, MySpace and many others certainly share. I considered Twitter and Pownce to publishing tools, not networking tools.

In response to my statement, Connie Crosby took the old-school approach, reminding me that social networks are indeed composed of people, not Web sites, but that Web sites — even blogs — can be effective social networking tools if people put an effort toward truly connecting and interacting.

Thu-An Bui also emphasized the idea of interaction. So did Julio Ojeda-Zapata, a technology writer at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and all-around geek (in the best way possible). And so did Clarence. Cece Salomon-Lee did, too, and added an angle about being able to “interconnect [with other people] seamlessly - add, delete, block, follow, etc.“

I think you see the trend developing here.

Social networking is about the people. Sites like Facebook are definitely focused on profile pages and connecting with other people, which led me to my initial, narrower definition of “social network” — something like a fancy, interactive Rolodex. Sites like Twitter, which the people mentioned above solidly regard as a social network, are more focused on communicating, I’d argue, than connecting people, but those two ideas are so closely connected I wonder if the distinction is relevant.

Why does any of this matter? I still wrestle with that. Maybe you can help (see that comment form below?). But one thing I do know: You can do yourself a favor by not getting caught up in your own preconceptions (or in this case, misconceptions). The way people use a Twitter, or a Facebook, or an anything, matters more than the label or even the purpose anyone tries to force upon it.

Tags: Facebook, Pownce, Twitter, semantics, social network by Mike Keliher
6 Comments »