Mr. Tweet is a Genius–and Good Lookin’ Too

A wonderful new application called Mr. Tweet does two things:

1. It identifies and briefly describes people who are following your Twitter updates but whom you do not follow back.

2. It identifies the most “influential” people in your network, based on their popularity, content relevance to you and likelihood of their following back.

I hate when people say you can sign up with “one-click ease,” but in this case it’s true.

I try to resist the “popularity contest” vibe that’s spreading on Twitter. What others do is fine–go ahead, build an Ego Posse that’s big and full of name-brand Twits, and strive to get more followers as a marker of personal worth or a distribution network for your branding and marketing message. Knock yourself out.

But even for me, proprietor of what is still a modest, selective posse, Mr. Tweet is valuable. Mr. Tweet makes a Twitter user’s habits transparent. By reporting, among other things, how frequently a Twitterer issues updates [and who else follows him or her], it helps me make better follow decisions. For instance, I prefer to follow those who Tweet fewer than six times a day; I make rare exceptions. Now I know what I’m getting into when I hit that “Follow” button.

Besides, Mr. Tweet is beautifully groomed. I’ve seen this guilelessly simple site design in a few start-ups lately, though I can’t recall which. I admire its defiant reliance on function and clarity.

I hope it’s a trend. It would certainly force down the cost of startup site design. Not a bad thing in these cash-starved times.

Thanksgiving for Losers: LiveBlogging the Holiday

My friend Ed sends along this link to The New York Times’ Thanksgiving liveblog.

Writes Ed: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should…..”

Well said, Ed. He could be offering a solemn prayer on behalf of all of those who have been battling this pernicious social media virus all year.

For the rest of us, let us be thankful for time with loved ones, far away from the keyboard and the perils of self-absorption.

Oh, wait. It’s 4:30 on Wednesday and I’m posting on my blog. Yikes. Gotta run.

Where’d that family go again?

A 2009 Checklist for Newspaper Publishers

Henry “Buzz” Wurzer, 40+ year newspaper industry veteran with service bars from Tribune and Hearst, among others, left a comment on this blog a few days ago. Afterward he sent along a kind of manifesto for newspaper publishers looking into 2009.

While waiting for it to arrive, I cringed a bit. I don’t know Wurzer, but he’s been around since the days of hot type, since before newspapers even began their ascendancy into cash-spewing local monopolies. He’s a long-time leader of newspaper trade groups. I expected a Defense of the One True Way.

But his 16-point checklist is anything but. It’s a progressive call to action.

A few favorite excerpts:

1. I would fire myself as publisher and rehire myself as CEO, Local [name of local market] Information Utility…

4. I would lead a culture change throughout my organization that all future strategic plans would be initiated digitally and then employ traditional formats such as print in a supportive role…

9. I would make available multiple links to other information channels to enhance the content I provide.

It’s scary for me to look around and see how few newspaper publishers are applying these principles. A good number still prohibit outlinks to other sources that add reader value, for instance, for fear of sending traffic to “the competition.” I’m not acquainted with a newspaper newsroom that as a matter of daily practice creates digital content first and assigns print a supportive role.

Earlier this month the American Press Institute convened newspaper executives for a “crisis” meeting. It appeared to produce little beyond anxious silence. The event was closed to reporters, the after-meeting conference call was canceled, and a short executive summary the only record of events [aside from one renegade Twitter stream--digital samizdat circulated furtively to shine light on the opaque dealings of the Central Committee of the People's Newspaper Ministry].

They could have saved themselves a lot of trouble. Read the items on Buzz Wurzer’s 16-point checklist. Adopt them.

It would be a start.

Download Wurzer’s newspaper-publishers-checklist. Visit his site here.

Apps for Democracy:

The Washington-based Apps for Democracy competition surfaced some creative, useful mash-ups worth a look.

A contest was sponsored by the D.C. government’s [comical government redundancy nomenclature alert!] Office of the Chief Technology Officer, Mashable, and local a firm called iStrategy Labs, whose owner, Peter Corbett, is fast becoming a social grandmaster in the Washing2on ™* scene.

The event asked people to mash-up public information into applications that might actually be useful.

The “Indie” Gold Medal winner: iLive.at

Nothing truly new here–not all that different, on first pass, from a Mapquest map. It layers on some demographic pie-charts and parses facilities into useful categories–errands, recreation, Did You Know?, etc. [The location specified on the map above is the "starter" house my wife and I bought in a then-dodgy D.C. neighborhood called Mt. Pleasant. And no, I didn't know the Embassy of the Czech Republic was .7 miles away.]

Other winners pull together data for carpool match-ups [the "People's Choice" winner], pedestrians, building permits, and something called Hansen reports, which are requests for city services, from “flashing parking meters” to “dead animal pick-up.”

It’s high-fallutin’ to call this “Apps for Democracy,” which make you expect voter turnout information or government accountability reporting. It’s more like “Apps for Civic Life.” But I admit that would be a harder sell.

* That “Washing2on” coinage is mine. I’m trying to find a label that’ll stick for the surprisingly vibrant D.C.-area social media mini-industry . Hey, it’s a start. You got better? Leave a comment.

NewsTrust: Wisdom of the . . .Few

From where I sit, NewsTrust is like Digg for thinking people–a way for an engaged, attentive usership to surface high quality journalism on a website for the world to see. Great premise. Solid execution. [Excellent usability!]

But. . .there are precious few contributors. The story that has the most user ratings–a widely-renowned, much circulated, 13-screen [!] New Yorker opus titled The Joshua Generation by editor David Remnick–has been reviewed 12 times. Most stories on NewsTrust have between 2 and 4 reviews.

NewsTrust is a non-profit organization, funded largely by grants and donations from, among others, the MacArthur Foundation. Its advisers and supporters include esteemed members of the digitelligencia.  It intends to become a self-sustaining business at some point. [Interest revealed: I used to work for PBS Engage, a NewsTrust partner, and have exchanged friendly e-mails with NT founder and digital pioneer Fabrice Florin.]

I’m sure there are ways to read the metrics–page views, stories reviewed, etc.–that make a case for the project’s value and success. I do not question that.

My interest is less with NewsTrust than with how it illustrates what I have come to consider an inviolable law of social networks: People will participate in a network only if they get more from it than they are required to give. Participation is premised on an implicit exchange of value, with the user coming out on top.

This may seem obvious–newsflash! people act in their own self-interest!. But many social networks fail to abide this rule–and fail.

Here’s a cost-vs.-benefit rundown on NewsTrust.

I submit a news story I think is particularly good. [This is easier when it's published on a NewsTrust partner site, such as The Washington Post, which includes a NewsTrust button along with the other save-and-share options such as del.icio.us, Digg, etc. ]

I rate the story, according to 6 criteria (”quick” review”), 10 criteria (”full”) or 13 (”advanced”). Ratings are from 1 to 5.

Doing this responsibly requires me to go back and re-read it carefully, to rate aspects like “sourcing” or “fairness” or completeness, which I probably hadn’t really thought about when I decided the story was really good. [I can skip anything other than a quick 1-to-5 quality rating if I like.]

Then I submit it.

My review gains value only if more than three other people rate the story I’ve submitted–and even then hardly rises to prominence where it can have much influence on site users, much less the broad reading public.

My contribution? At least 5 minutes of high-grade intellectual energy. [More like an hour if I actually read that whole damn Remnick thing online. I'll print it out. It sounds really good.] Another surfing distraction that keeps me from my paying work. A little more swelling in the ol’ carpal tunnel.

The value I’ve gotten back? Hmmm. . .a hope that a few people will read a story I think is unusually worthy? The mild satisfaction one gets from inflicting one’s opinion into a public forum? The recognition I get if I do a lot of reviews and people review my reviews highly?

Even though I’m a civic-minded guy–plus a former newshand who believes strongly in the public value of high-quality journalism–that’s too low a reward-to-effort ratio to earn my regular participation. I feel like I’m being asked to do a lot of homework for a class I’m just auditing.

A thriving community where thousands of people elevate the best journalism to the public’s eye would be an enormous national benefit. I hope NewsTrust can identify people who get the psychic payback they’d need to contribute regularly. Or that it can somehow alter the value proposition to the user’s benefit.

Maybe I’m too close to this situation to be objective.

As it happens, I am a contributor to a non-profit online effort called HealthNewsReview.  We rank health and medical news stories according to 10 criteria similar to NewsTrust’s. We also have a hard time getting users to offer their opinions on our bulletin board. We also struggle to build audience for this important effort beyond a core of folks who follow medical news very closely.

So why do I devote the time and energy to writing these long and difficult health and medical news reviews?

I wish I could say I made these contributions selflessly, in the name of the public good.

But, well. . .they pay me to do them.

The Latest Death-of-Journalism Spat, Condensed for Easy Reading!

Many pixels were spilt in last week’s sh*tspatter feud between digital news evangelist Jeff Jarvis and veteran print author Ron Rosenbaum.

I read the whole damn thing and, as a public service, present this tidy downboil. Links provided for future-of-news geeks and shut-ins.

1. Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi writes in AJR that neither journalism nor journalists are responsible for newspapers’ death spiral.

2. Jarvis responds in the Guardian, to Farhi and others, that inflexible print journalists are indeed at least partly culpable for the crisis.

3. Rosenbaum writes in Slate a bitter, personal attack on Jarvis, accusing him of profiteering and excessive glee at journalists’ misfortune.

4. Jarvis retaliates with a condescending, personal rebuttal of Rosenbaum, depicting Rosenbaum as sentimental and ill-informed.

5. The digisphere responds mostly with reflexive defenses of print journalism, from both mainstream and sidestream sources.

6. Digital news consultant [!] Amy Gahran does some impressive web reporting [!] that reveals evidence of Rosenbaum’s startling online naivete.

My two cents: Blame doesn’t matter. Journalists unwilling to think and work differently to save the profession should take the next buyout.

n.b. Each summary above is fewer than 140 characters, no longer than a Twitter update.

Next Page »