media

Twitter 101: These Are Not The Cavaliers You’re Looking For

Posted on by John

I don’t normally blog much about twitter: it seems like an already over-covered by other voices.

Lately, though, I’ve been seeing an increase in twittering of dubious value. For example, automatically following (or stalking, as Ari Herzog put it) folks who mention a given term, and overly friendly twitter accounts purporting to be young women who want you to see their ‘special’ photos on other sites. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s also seen lots of new followers whose usernames look suspiciously like they were generated by a script – JohnSmith18273, JaneDoe45039.

This week, for example, Ann from MarketingProfs mentioned that her dogs – King Charles Cavalier Spaniels – are staying with my wife and I while she’s out of town. Then rt_cavs retweeted it:

Indiscriminate Retweeting
Indiscriminate Retweeting

The problem, of course, is that her dogs have nothing to do with the Cleveland Cavaliers. I don’t think Cavs fans are so enthralled with their team as to be interested in the dogs, or the cars, or any of the other things cavalier might mean.

When keyword matching twitterbots are at their best, they can broadcast tweets of interest to a broader community who might otherwise not have seen it. In cases like this, though, they just reduce the signal-to-noise ratio.

media

Crowdsourcing, Incentive, and Value

Posted on by John

In this video, Jeff Howe, a contributing editor at Wired and the author of Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business, presents during a Berkman Center Luncheon on some of the key issues around the concept, including:

  • What motivates the contributors in crowdsourced efforts? Specifically, to what extent are monetary incentives a driver as compared to extra-monetary ones?
  • What about “crowdsourced” projects which are not creative or knowlege-worker oriented, but outsourced menial labor?
  • How can or should “creatives” respond to the rise of crowdsourced alternatives?

Jeff Howe at Berkman Center on Crowdsourcing
Jeff Howe at Berkman Center on Crowdsourcing

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Open Source and Design: Ideologies Clashing (SXSW Extended Content)

Posted on by John

One of the panels I proposed for SXSW Interactive 2009 was on the intersection of open source and design:

Thesis: Open Source and Design are fundamentally philosophically incompatible. Antithesis: Open Source and Design are profoundly similar in core beliefs and approaches. This talk works to articulate a meaningful synthesis between these two positions.

The talk, unfortunately, wasn’t accepted for presentation at the conference, but they suggested that instead I do a shorter, podcast or video podcast version for the Extended Content program.

I did, and that content now has gone live on the SXSW site:

In our first installment of the Extended Content series, John Eckman tells you everything you need to know about open source and design. The differences and similarities, how they benefit each other and why they have trouble getting along.

Extended Content at SXSW Interactive
Extended Content at SXSW Interactive

(Unfortunately they don’t allow embedding, so you’ll have to go there to watch it – and at least on two browsers I tried it on, you’ll have to wait for the whole thing to preload before it starts playing – so go get a cup of coffee or whatever while it loads).

It’s just shy of 20 minutes, and having been created back in February 2009 feels (to me) a bit outdated in spots – mostly the continued evolution of the work Mark Boulton and Leisa Reichelt have been doing with the Drupal community (not just on Drupal.org but also on Drupal 7 itself), which I encourage you to check out if you’re interested in the subject.

media

One Word: Audience

Posted on by John

On the “Future of Publishing” panel this morning at Media Bistro Circus in New York, Dan Costa asked the panel what advice they’d give to young graduates looking to come to New York and enter the field of journalism.

Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate
Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate

It reminded me of the scene in The Graduate where Dustin Hoffman’s uncle corners him and tells him “I got one word for you: plastics.” Except that now the new word would be something more like “audience” or maybe “brand.”

(Eileen Gittins of Blurb got the biggest laugh of the day with her answer – “marry well.” Ouch. I thought the days of “pre-wed” degrees were over – though to be fair she said that applied equally to male and female grads).

Anil Dash provided a bit of insight that “only the old folks are worried about this – young grads will get crappy jobs that pay poorly as young grads have always done.” True enough , but I’d argue the whole question is wrong.
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media

Save Paste and the future of publishing?

Posted on by John

paste_logo2 I’m a big fan and subscriber of Paste, an independent U.S.-based monthly (now shifting closer to bi-monthly, with every other issue being a single-topic special edition) magazine focused on music, film, and books, with a passionate spirit.

Currently, however, they are running a Campaign to Save Paste, soliciting donations to offset operating losses. What does the need for such campaign tell us about the future of online publishing?

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