Social Media Friday: Bits and Bobs

I really have to clean up my post tags. I’m not looking forward to it. Sigh.

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So after over a year trying, I may finally be figuring out the point of Twitter. Sometimes, yeah, (like this morning) it’s trying to get songs stuck in people’s heads. Sharing links or catching up or being silly. But sometimes you do see the implications of the ability to share quick information broadly, instantly, wherever. Wednesday a USAir passenger claimed he had a bomb - and a passenger Twittered it. How will this change what we call breaking news? It's going to be wild to see how wide-ranging the implications will be.

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As companies slowly wrap their brains (and budgets) around social media, it’s interesting to see the acknowledgment of effort. Honestly trying gets appreciated, while being disingenuous gets called out. The J&J Camp Baby debacle – scheduling a mommyblogger gathering concurrent to BlogHer, and then not making accommodations for kids – has gotten plenty of scorn, but seems to have been understood as mostly a mistake borne of ignorance and awkwardness in an honest effort. Unlike, for instance, the fake WalMart/Edelman blog, which in my opinion was worse. I think the problem is laziness - when you try to use old-media tactics, it's going to be painfully obvious. Think like people, not like companies... and go from there.

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Brian Solis talks about how social media are evolving to distribute conversations. So news might start with a blog post, that gets commented on, that gets Twittered about, that gets other blogs linking to it, which get commented on… etc. Yes, obviously. The point? Well, for starters, I realize that media reports are going to be rapidly more useless. Unless and until the semantic web makes terms more cross-platform searchable. And, of course, I realize this while writing… a media report. Oooh, the irony, she is palpable.

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Finally, I wonder, is it greedy to want rather desparately to see Patrick Stewart on stage yet again when I’ve already seen him in The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, The Tempest and King Lear? It is, isn't it? Hm. Well. I guess you can just call me greedy.

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By the way, Maria, go read Embers.