About This Blog

The web is convulsing with new ways for people to connect: blogs, microblogs, social networks, ratings and recommendation sites, user-generated material, mobile tools, and content that’s being pushed, pulled, splintered apart and mashed together.

This is all happening without the permission of media, corporations, government or responsible adults of any type.

The good news is, this is making the world more transparent, connected and immediate.

The bad news is, this is making the world more transparent, connected and immediate.

No matter how you regard it, “Web 2.0″–I prefer the terms the “social web” or “social media”–is driving a cultural transformation. It’s disrupting journalism, marketing, PR, politics, business and government. This change may be bigger than the one where we all started using e-mail and the web.

Some of this new social web technology is brilliant, visionary, disruptive.

Some of it is foolish, embarrassing and a waste of time and money.

My mission: To distinguish between gold and garbage.

What happens when real human beings try to use this stuff? Do these innovations help anybody do anything useful? Or do they exist only to please their creators, investors and retainers?

I’m delighted to report that, for plodding face-forward into the hurricane of 2.0 hype, this blog was named one of Time.com’s Top 25 Blogs. I know, I know: I don’t belong on the same linklist as Michael Arrington. But I’ll take it.

As for me: I’m Craig Stoltz: former Washington Post editor, ex-Revolution Health editorial director, former director of the PBS social media initiative known as Engage, recidivist blogger. I contribute to The Health Care Blog and, when I’m feeling loose, The Huffington Post.

Despite my distate for 2.0ffal [or maybe because of it], I make my living helping clients be smarter about the web. Sometimes this involves social web features. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Visit my plainly self-promotional website at www.stoltzdigital.com. There you’ll find some stuff I’ve written about social media strategies, tactics and concepts. Go ahead, download it for free. I promise it’s worth every penny.

Comments: stoltzc@gmail.com.