Could ‘Crowd Sourcing’ boost democracy?

With an election looming politicians are falling over themselves to tell us where the web-based future lies and what they’ll be doing to get us there first.  I’m fairly cynical about the whole process… although an incumbent government can give the green light to policy that facilitates faster broadband, innovation, investment in infrastructure blah, blah, blah… it still requires someone to come up with the technology, dig the trench to put the high speed line in, or make it so the technology is affordable…

Reading Dan Sabbagh’s blog (former Media Editor at The Times) I was glad to see I wasn’t the only cynic.   In his post ‘Strangled by the cord’ (1^st Feb 2010) Sabbagh notes the detail of previous manifesto promises of the various political parties when it comes to all things web…

However, my cynicism aside, there is a good argument that there is a real place for social media in a democratic society.  In a recent post on the Conservative’s ‘Blue Blog’ there was an article that hinted at the delivery of a system that would allow voters the option to develop policy almost first hand.  The post proclaimed that should the Conservatives win the election they’d “… run a competition to come up the best new technology that will let large groups of people get together online and develop new policies.” i.e. ‘Crowd Sourcing’.

As a true floating voter, I think I fall both sides of the fence on this one… I like the idea of people having real input in a policy debate but am worried that a motivated protest group or organisations could mobilise an online army of supporters and skew any online vote or debate… forwarding a link and asking people to register their support or disdain doesn’t necessarily mean they have understood or engaged on an issue… I also worry that it marginalises people without home internet access… a diminishing group I know but they do still exist.

Intrigued by the idea of Crowd Sourcing, coupled with the idea of open-source (a principle many blogs, including this one, are based on) I went looking for readily available technologies.  I stumbled across Opinion Suite but am sure there are lots more out there.  It’ll be interesting to see what the promised £1 million prize will bring if the Conservatives are elected.  It would be nice to think whichever government is in power, use of social media to truly interact with voters will increase.

Social media and PR… two peas in a pod???

Apparently, not everyone in PR is as social media literate as I might have first thought.  Cartmell, writing in PR Week (‘Digital skills in short supply’ – 15^th January 2010), reported some statistics recruitment agency ‘Major Players’ had revealed:

• There is a general lack of understanding but also a deficit of those with the right expertise to fill specific social media roles
• CVs lacked even a cursory mention of social media buzzwords such as blogging or Twitter
• In the past two years just six percent of PRs CVs referenced social media

You could argue that this was reflective of the market (i.e. clients just weren’t demanding social media expertise).  However, the same article also observed that:

• 33 percent of recruitment searches by PR employers required digital and social media expertise
• A further 28 percent require a general understanding of social media

It could be suggested that the end consumer may not be at this level yet (i.e. 33 percent don’t make their purchasing decision/form an opinion on an issue based on social media) but, it is likely the percentage of stakeholders that do utilise this form of media will continue to increase dramatically.

In essence, the Major Players statistics mentioned above are a prediction of future trends.  As is customary at this time of year, the PR trade press is full of similar articles trying to add insight into expected media trends.  Often these prove to be wrong, trying to focus on the specific detail too much.  However, one article in particular caught my attention.  Not for the detail of its predictions, rather lack of.  Semple, writing in the January edition of CorpComms Magazine, takes a more pragmatic approach to social media in 2010 and beyond.  Semple makes a number of enlightening observation, highlighting what he terms ‘broad themes’:

• ‘Flow’  - Flow is going to become an increasingly important word. “Information flows in, gets modified, and flows out.  What matters as much as the modification in the middle is the quality of the incoming and outgoing networks.”.  Semple describes how his blog isn’t so much a ‘talk to the hand’ statement, rather an invitation to a conversation which creates flow
• Increased impact of the web on society – On the face of it this seems like a ‘no brainer’ but Semple does set it in context.  Semple observes that it will be used for good as well as bad and that it will be less easy to dismiss it as marginal or ‘just technology’.  Also, crucially, that it will be ‘taken more seriously by more people’.

For my part, I agree with these and would add a few of my own to the list:

• The digital divide will widen – Users and ‘none-users’ of digital and social media will become more entrenched in their ways.  As technology advances and offers more services, those that choose not to use it will cite this perceived complexity as a reason not to engage.  Yes, inevitably there will be those that cross the divide (in both directions) but the biggest movement will be towards ‘technology’ rather than away from it.
• Soon there will be a generation that chooses digital and social media as its only source of news, shunning more traditional forms such as print media completely.  Much as I used to love to wait for the teletext pages to load so I could consume news when I wanted to (rather than wait for a TV bulletin), this generation will take its news feed entirely ‘on-demand’.

Who owns social media in an organisation?

This post comes on the back of a conversation with a colleague in IT.  When chatting about some recent blog posts we’d seen, he said that ‘owning’ social media for the organisation had dramatically increased his workload… ‘Managing social media?’ I said inquisitively.  ‘Yeah, sure.’ came the reply…

After further conversation and a couple of cups of tea later, we were still debating who was responsible for social media in an organisation…

Stupidly, I also mentioned this conversation to a marketing colleague who again laughed and said it was marketing who ‘owned’ it!!!

My IT friend claimed to ‘own’ it because he was involved in Search Engine Optimisation (see earlier post) and also because he liked to monitor ‘chatter’ on social networking sites.

My marketing chum tells me that because he creates viral adverts that get forwarded on again and again, or repeatedly visited on YouTube, it was his kingdom.

For my part, I claimed no one ‘owned’ it but that if any discipline should take the lead in the social media space it was the public relations team.

To illustrate my argument I invoke the help of a lecturer and a fellow student…

Fellow MSc student, Tom Cooledge, recently wrote a blog post about Cadbury’s Cream Eggs and the site www.creamegg.co.uk which features online games and videos… the blog post reminded me about a PR initiative that was said to be an independent fan campaign to get Wispas back on the shelf .  Whether it or was or whether it wasn’t independent, Cadbury’s response to the opportunity dominated social media at the time… whether it was the ‘I love 1980s’ website it launched to recapture the nostalgia for the bars, or the YouTube videos shot by people after they’d just bought a bar for the first time, all of the activity around the product was PR led.

The Wispa example is important for our debate because in a recent post, PR lecturer Richard Bailey, wrote about the definition of PR and kindly reminded me of Lord Bell’s distinction between PR and advertising:

Advertising – ‘the use of paid-for media to inform and persuade’

Public Relations – ‘the use of third party endorsement to inform and persuade’

The Wispa campaign was definitely not paid-for and was primarily driven by third party endorsement.  The Wispa example also fits well with Heath’s (2001, p.3) definition that PR ‘…can create mutually beneficial relationships’.  Here, consumers wanted to be entertained and see Wispa back on the shelf and Cadbury’s wanted to sell more chocolate and increase brand awareness… both parties got what they wanted so it was most definitely mutually beneficial.

Having told my IT and marketing colleagues about this case study I felt quite smug… that was until I  sat down to watch a repeat of Rude Tube. This showed an advert for Microsoft that was designed (and succeeded) in becoming a YouTube hit…  Score a point for the marketing argument side of the debate.

So, in an organisation, where does social media sit?  Who is responsible for it?  In all honesty, the answer is probably multiple disciplines and very much depends on the organisation.  I think the important thing is to have an awareness and a willingness to use it.

I think the phrase ‘owning’ social media is so very wrong.  You don’t ‘own’ social media… that’s the whole point of social media, it’s the users that make it what it is… no one person can make or shape it, it’s a collective action or a happening and that’s what makes it truly unique.  By its very nature it has credibility because it isn’t one person or one company that drives it.

Social media is the perfect example of ‘Darwinian evolution’…

What I mean is, the web has obviously evolved since its inception… the fact we have a lexicon which includes Web 2.0 is testament to this… however, I believe that social media is the perfect environment to demonstrate ‘Darwinian evolution’, only at a much more accelerated rate.

Confused?  I’ll explain further…  Darwin’s theory suggested that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection.

Helpfully, Biologist Ernst Myer also broke the theory down further, refining it to a simple set of bullet points.  Importantly, two of these were:

• Individuals less suited to the environment are less likely to survive and less likely to reproduce; individuals more suited to the environment are more likely to survive and more likely to reproduce and leave their inheritable traits to future generations, which produces the process of natural selection
• This slowly [note the time reference] effected process results in populations changing to adapt to their environments, and ultimately, these variations accumulate over time to form new species.

In the course of my studies, I’ve found blogs which have no comments posted on them.  Assuming they have no link backs to them on other sites either, they will literally cease to exist in the social media context because they have failed to reproduce.  Yes, the author could keep posting but, eventually this will cease.  However, popular sites which command an audience will be forever reviewed and immortalized (or in the Darwinian sense ‘survive’) because permanent reminders – links to the site – will exist.

A funny point to make I know but, I think this social media evolution is going further still and helping other ‘inanimate’ objects survive that may not have otherwise existed past one generation.  The reason I say this is that social media for some people has transcended just being a clever marketing tool, it has allowed people, ideas, and intellectual property to gain fame and recognition where they may not have otherwise done so.

An image that would have otherwise been consigned to someone’s photo album and ultimately discarded, or a song or a rift written down but never sold or reproduced on any scale, both now have a chance of reproducing… perhaps via YouTube or Facebook.

I know the purists amongst you will argue that eventually the web will be made obsolete by another technology or that something could be deleted from a server or PC and thus lost forever… but, in its purest form, I believe social media filters out those least suited to survive and thus performs its own form of natural selection.

Barnett, bing and Google…

…no, it’s not the name of a new children’s TV programme, rather my own very none scientific search engine, sorry Microsoft bing ‘decision engine’ test…

There has been a lot written in the last six months about the bing vs. Google battle.  From my own perspective I’ve always used Goggle, have an iGoogle page with feeds set up just the way I like and I’m even a fan of the Google doodles… but have to admit to being curious.  On the face of it bing looks different and I like the fact it has a ‘Feedback’ link bottom right – very web 2.0.

The rules of my test are simple, which one gets me to my destination the quickest?

My blog www.theprblogisdead.wordpress.com has made me into a media whore.  To any friend or relative who will listen I tell them I have a blog, and many of them (bless you all) have even taken the time to have a read it, and even fewer (bless you twice) have left comments on previous posts.

Now, assuming you had only the smallest amount of information, how long would it take to find my blog…?

Step One… put ‘Alex Barnett’ into both Google and bing…

Both bing and Google list www.alexbarnett.net/blog as the topped ranked blog… I have an arch nemesis who maintains a blog… it’s slick, well designed and well maintained (but he does have an unfair advantage… he’s been a web developer in the past by the looks of things and a good one from what I can tell)… plus he’s on Twitter and delicious… beginning to think finding me is more difficult than I first thought…

Step Two… put ‘Alex Barnett Student’ into both Google and bing (going on the theory my family and friends know this blog is linked to a university course)

Damn… I’m still being haunted by my web developer nemesis…

Step Three… try all and any words with Alex Barnett to see if my blog appears on the first page of the Goggle or bing rankings (tried Alex Barnett Student, Alex Barnett Corporate Communications, Alex Barnett Leeds Student, Alex Barnett Student Blog)… but, alas, still nothing…

I have to say it’s hats of to my new nemesis and well deserved.  This gent has been blogging for years, has a social media profile of a true heavyweight in the industry… me, a mere three months with a blog had no chance… and that kind of proves the point… both Google, bing and the rest of the competition take numerous variables into considerations (see my earlier post on SEO).  Trying to get my blog ranked top is pretty futile…

However, in a slightly more scientific approach I also looked at what some more informed commentators had to say on the issue:

Bing Is Not Google, but it might be better than you think - From the Guardian, a great article that teases out some of the unique features of bing like its ‘vertical areas’.

Microsoft: There’s a buzz about Bing - From the BBC dot.life blog observing: “Bing certainly has some nice features, but it’s by no means clear to me that it does a much better job than Google.”  Also conducts a similar test to mine – although far more successful – assessing which engine gets you to your destination most effectively.

Microsoft’s Bing search engine in challenge to Google – From Times Online, a great article giving a little more explanation of what constitutes a decision engine, also includes statistics on one of the biggest drivers for Microsoft’s development of bing… expected ad revenues!

Google or bing – you decide.

Santa gets a social media makeover…

Who’d have thought it, now even Father Christmas has a Twitter feed… I kid you not!   

It’s actually hosted by NORAD… no really, I’m not making this up!  NORAD, using Google Earth, will help children (and I suspect adults too) track Santa as he delivers presents to the entire globe (now that’s a man with lots of Airmiles!).

According to CBC news it all started by mistake:

“NORAD and its predecessor the Continental Air Defense Command started tracking Santa in 1955, initially providing updates on Santa’s progress to any kids who called an operations hotline because of a misprinted Sears Roebuck ad.”

So it’s all just a bit of fun really… isn’t it???  Well not everyone takes this view with some suggesting that although Santa should have a website, he shouldn’t have a Twitter feed. 

The argument goes that because Twitter by its very nature is public, and thus unmoderated, there is a fear someone on Santa’s naughty list could ruin Christmas by posting something inappropriate… but then again, who’d be foolish enough to do that and risk not getting a present from Father Christmas? …certainly not me! …I’ll be tucked up in bed nice and early with a glass of sherry and a mince pie waiting by the tree for when Santa arrives

Should the Tiger meow or roar?

Again, as with so many recent news stories, social media led the way in the developing Tiger Woods saga…

Bloggers around the world, like me now, added their thoughts.  Coverage focussed on the news void that the lack of further comment from Tiger had created. 

By not posting further statements or updates, many people became judge, jury and executioner for Tiger…  citing a lack of comment almost as critically as his initial infidelities.  There is a great quote by Matt Eventoff on socialmediatoday on the topic:

“…innocent until proven guilty may exist in the courtroom, in the living room the opposite often holds true.”

The morals of the wider story aside, the above quote reinforces the power of social media.  Unless the response is immediate, it’s often seen as a snub, an inability to communicate or a wrongdoing in itself.

The apparent ‘no comment’ created a media void  thus encouraging social and traditional media alike to find a way to keep the story up-to-date… again, step forward social media.  News centred on fans’ comments on Tiger’s own blog.  

Did Tiger’s management fail to reply and add comment or did Tiger take charge and ask them to give him time… we may never know?

Media pundits seem to agree on what an ideal model should have looked like, suggesting some or all of the below…

• Be seen to be pro-active – no comment won’t work.
• Use the tools you already have – social media has speeded up the traditional news publishing cycle and in many ways will lead the debate.  One of the most quoted sources throughout the whole saga’s coverage was Tiger Woods’ own blog.  Even no update on the blog became news.
• Say sorry (Tiger has now done this but it took some time).
• Acknowledge your audience – fans often want to defend but with nothing to use they can’t become advocates.
• Monitor like mad and make sure lies and falsehoods are kept in-check.

What pundits don’t agree on is the long-term future of brand Tiger Woods.  Some believe his brand is now tarnished, as his squeaky clean image was a major USP (that and the fact he plays golf rather well) so his earnings may be limited.  Others believe he’s already tried to start to repair this image – the decision to put family before golf sends a strong message and in the long-term may yield the best results… not to mention save his marriage!

The only thing we can be sure of at this stage is that the story certainly isn’t dead and that social media is likely to keep it going for much longer.

Media fight night…

In the red corner weighing in at 776 million users we have Google… In the blue corner selling 2.1 million copies in the US alone we have the Wall Street Journal part of the bigger News Corp empire…  ladies and gentleman, this could be the fight of the heavyweights the media industry has been waiting for…

Well almost! As it turns out, despite some fancy footwork in the ring early on and a few missed punches, Google and News Corp agreed to shake hands rather than trade yet more blows… well, for the moment anyway!

Earlier this week Google announced its solution for the ongoing social media vs. print media debate.  Google confirmed it would let publishers set a daily limit on the number of articles readers can view for free through the internet giant’s search engine.

What’s the big deal I hear you say…? Well, what you may not have realised is that even on media sites (e.g. Wall Street Journal) where content was on a subscription basis, you could in effect go through a backdoor and read it for free anyway if you went in via a Google search.

I don’t think this will be last we’ll hear about how traditional media providers cope with the changing way we digest our news… and I don’t think it will stop search engines becoming ever more inventive in how they enable users to access content.

Google zeitgeist list… evidence of a shared experience?

I’ve just finished watching the lunchtime news and saw a piece about the Google Zeitgeist list.  I love the fact that despite the millions of google searches done every single day there is a certain amount of conformity.

Annoyingly, at the time of writing the full report/press release for the 2009 list isn’t on the google press centre but I’m sure it will be up in a couple of days – until then I’ll just reference the Channel 4 article and previous google zeitgeist lists.

In 2008 facebook, BBC, and youtube topped the UK google search poll and this is still the case in 2009.  This propensity to search for social networking platforms must truly prove the existence of Web 2.0 and the ‘conversations’ we now all choose to have online. 

In a lecture for this module of my MSc (New Media) we debated how the internet and the proliferation of media channels was gradually destroying the ‘shared experience’ often associated with certain events (e.g. the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special or the episode of Dallas where JR got shot).  The theory being that now, because of the huge amount of choice, fewer viewers tune in to a particular show and the shared experience (i.e we all watch it then talk about it the next day at work) is some how diminished/lost… and to a certain extent I believe it is…

However, I believe the google zeitgeist stats support a different hypothesis as well… the shared experience is changing and becoming more instant… I say this because, like millions of other viewers on Saturday, my wife and I sat down to watch the X Factor.  We sat and talked about the usual… who was good, who was bad and which act would end up eliminated.  However, at the same time my wife also had a Netbook on her lap and was talking to her friends on facebook about the same thing…

It can also be suggested that social media has enhanced the shared experience but in a ‘none time dependent’ way…  I say this because of programmes like Channel 4’s Rude Tube.  This show features the most popular You Tube clips in a given category.  Often the most popular clips receive over 100 million hits – far more viewers than any single TV show ever does.  The only difference is that this ‘shared experience’ happens over an extended time period rather than in a pre-scheduled time slot.  Indeed, much of the shared experience comes from someone recommending a clip to you, you seeking it out and then returning to that person at a later date to continue the conversation.

The prestige of print

It seems no matter how much traffic we drive to our blogs, or how many comments we receive, much of social media still seems to crave legitimacy and recognition by making the crossover to the more traditional print and broadcast media.  ‘Heresy’ I hear the citizen journalists amongst us cry…!

OK, so maybe I’m generalising a bit but the reason I make this observation is a recent article on the Channel 4 website entitled ‘Blogpaper launches its first free newspaper’.  Here, a print publication is to be freely available and consists entirely of articles submitted by bloggers.  However, all the content of the freesheet is not chosen by an editor but rather by website users who have read and voted on submitted articles… an X-factor of the blogosphere if you will!  This process is known as crowd sourcing.

Although this publication will cross the invisible barrier between social and print media, it can be argued that it is still Clay Shirky’s theory of ‘Publish, then Filter’ in is simplest and perhaps most pure form.   Where else can content that has already been read ‘reappear’ in print having been voted for by the masses?