Unjournalism

I want people to leave SocialTNT alone, and here, I’ll tell you why.

It all started on Saturday when Chris Lynn, a.k.a. SocialTNT, made a comment about how he found coolness in a gay couple and their adopted child and the skin colors of each. It seemed an honest, innocent statement to me, but one Ike Pigott started questioning Chris’ comment.

I’ve met neither Chris nor Ike in person, but I “know” them both somewhat well via the Internets and the wonderful world of Twitter. Chris is here and Ike is here. They both seem like great guys. Certainly smart and worth following.

Anyway, the conversation between Chris and Ike, as Chris worked to explain his views and Ike questioned his motivations, became just a little heated. Not unfriendly or mean, but a bit testy at times.

Finally, Chris said, “Do I need to cry to win your sympathy and seem more human?” (He was kidding, of course, and he wrote it more like Prince, using the number 2 for the word “to” and whatnot.)

Just for fun, I asked Chris how long it would take to upload the video. He took me seriously. Unfortunately, before he put his video together, Chris said that if he did it, he’d want me to re-create that infamous “Leave Britney alone” video for his story.

So I did.

I used the original Britney-fan video as a loose outline, changing the lines to be relevant to Chris Lynn — and to make them funny. Each line in my video is prompted by a little something I know about Chris, like how he does a series of video posts on his blog called “3Qs in the 3min” or how his lesbian roommates moved out AND TOOK THE MICROWAVE!

I’m writing this post for three reasons:

1) To document this story, time capsule-style, for future generations of geeks who will find this as funny as I do.

2) To explain why I did this so I seem a little less demented and to increase the chances other people will think it’s funny.

3) To make sure I don’t piss off Ike. He’s always talking about logic and fallacies and syllogisms and whatnot. I’d hate to get in a argument with him. Seems smart.

Plus, it’s just a joke.

Tags: SocialTNT, Twitter by Mike Keliher
3 Comments »

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 »

The past week has brought two great posts on the power of Twitter. At the same time, my love and respect for Twitter and the people within my Twitter universe is growing like never before.

My Twitter consumption habits are continually evolving, and I think I’ve finally hit on something that works pretty well. First step: I follow anyone who seems even remotely interesting or who follows me first. If he or she is entirely uninteresting or completely annoying, I can always “unfollow.”

Until recently, I received all incoming tweets (not direct messages, but everything from anyone I follow) as Google Talk instant messages. There’s no way I’d opt to have every tweet sent to my cell phone as a text message, and instant message style was way more convenient than only interacting with twitter.com.

And I read every single tweet. Seriously. It wasn’t a Scoble-esque following of 6,000 people, but with 60 or so followees (at the time), it was a damn lot to read. People “in my crowd,” like Robert Scoble, BL Ochman, Todd Defren and Jeremiah Owyang, tend to tweet a ton. (Hooray for alliteration!)

Within the past couple of weeks, I’ve shifted course. I now use the desktop app Snitter for reading, writing and interacting with the Twitter world. I’ve also resolved to continue to grow my Twitter crowd, but not for popularity reasons. The way I use Twitter, the more smart, active people, the better. With that resolution, I’ve given up on my commitment to read it all. I now am smart enough to just keep the window open and watch the brilliance, humor, wit, observations, inanity and riff-raff fly by all day long. It’s a wonderful thing.

Part of the power of Twitter is that, among all of these social tools we use to communicate on the Web, this is the one that truly feels social. For me, blogs, podcasts and wikis are only “social” in comparison to, say, newspapers and network television. But with Twitter, I truly feel as though I’ve established some sense of a relationship with certain people.

One of the more insightful folks in my Twitter crowd is Garrick Van Buren, and he hits the nail on the head:

It’s my water cooler. It’s light, small, flexible, and I don’t mind the instability.

(By the way, he’s funny, too.)

What’s the point? I’ve spent a lot of time recently hashing out with colleagues the ins and outs of Twitter, why a person would use this vs. that, what it can and can’t do (technically and professionally), and the like. For me, it always boils down to this: Twitter, like many other things in life, online or off, is what you make of it.

The beauty is that I don’t have to work hard to make a lot of it. I rarely find the time to write meaningful blog posts, and when I finally think I’m going to, I never dig in because the writing I would like to accomplish is daunting. But Twitter’s 140-character limit is the polar opposite; it’s downright inviting. I’m sure my Twitter stream is far more valuable on a regular basis than this blog.

So there’s my brain dump on Twitter. I don’t think it’s what I had in mind when I started writing, but part of my goal was to think through my own usage and habits and see them in a new light. How about you: What are your Twitter habits, and how do they fit into your day?

Tags: Twitter, new media by Mike Keliher
2 Comments »

So I haven’t posted in a damn long time. I’m moving and I’m getting married in a couple of weeks. As the kids say on the MTV, this shit is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Anyway, here’s my two cents for the day: Twitter — or more accurately, the people I follow on Twitter — has done a great job of quickly getting the word out about news lately. Most recent example: PodTech hiring a new CEO, James McCormick. I learned about this via a Twitter message (”tweet” if you’re nasty) from Jeremiah Owyang, who works for PodTech.

It’s been at least 20 minutes since I saw that message, and it has been about three hours since the news release went out over BusinessWire. And still there’s no mention on Valleywag or TechCrunch — not that this is a bad thing, really, but I’d expect either of those blogs to be all over this news. In fact, the post on PodTech’s own blog is the only other trace of this news I can find in the blog world.

Hooray for Twitter people.

Tags: Twitter, blogging, breaking news, journalism by Mike Keliher
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Steve Rubel must be cowering in fear. He can’t even bring himself to defend…himself, I guess. He’s so concerned about apologizing for a recent Twitter tweet that trashed (literally) PC Magazine.

Jim Louderback, the editor of PC Mag, is pissed. Rubel is apologizing. Comments are a-flyin’ all over the place, particularly on Rubel’s open-letter post.

I like the comment from Steve Coulson of crayon, who says Louderback is, to paraphrase with my own words, being childish and missing an opportunity to improve his magazine. But I see another issue:

I understand Rubel’s reason for the apology here (Jim’s response column on Strumpette paints a potentially ugly picture for some of Edelman’s clients — “I’ll probably be somewhat less inclined to take a meeting with one of Edelman’s clients”), but Rubel’s post would have meant a lot more if he actually explained what he meant in his offending tweet and just defended himself a bit.

Louderback guesses that, in just tossing the mag, Rubel apparently doesn’t even care to see if any of Edelman’s clients were covered in the magazine. Does he not realize that flipping through the paper pages isn’t the only way to find that out? And does Rubel not feel strongly enough to say, “Yeah, you can keep my print subscription. I’ve got your RSS feeds and your Web site, and that’s all I need from you. Thanks”?

And don’t even get me started on the thoughts I had about Jim’s childish (although seemingly sincere, which is great) response, in which he borders on abandoning any and all journalistic principles just to stick to Rubel and Edelman. Unless he’s acknowledging that PC Mag is just a PR pro’s wet dream of low editorial standards, why would it matter who’s pitching Adobe CS3 or Microsoft Whatever’sNext? Regardless of the relationship with the PR firm, shouldn’t his magazine cover what’s of interest to the audience — not what fits into the framework of the editor’s grudge-du-jour?

Tags: Jim Louderback, PC Magazine, Steve Rubel, Twitter by Mike Keliher
2 Comments »

Brandflakes for Breakfast brings us a great post about the “best use of Twitter yet“: the producer of a Fox TV show is going to be Twittering (or is it “tweeting”?) during the premiere. One commenter at Brandflakes says, “This is about as exciting as a trip to the dentist.”

I disagree. Sure, if you’re not interested in the show, you’re not going to care about the Twittering of the show. And if you’re old, you’re likely to not care even if you do like the show. But for the type of people who are going to watch Fox’s “Drive,” this could be huge and, as Brandflakes says, genius.

Think about the potential this idea has, too. I’m just getting worked up for the Twins season, and I would love to have a trainer or a coach or benched player or even a reporter Twittering from the dugout. The uses are plenty. I’m quickly starting to like this Twitter thing, which I just started a few days ago.

Mad props to Kevin Dugan for this one.

Tags: Fox, Twitter by Mike Keliher
1 Comment »