Text is not Dead

The Dark Side of Reddit

I browsed through the Reddit site, and at first, I thought it was just another interesting website where users voted on the content. However, after reading this site, which I stumbled upon while trying to understand how to use Reddit, I see that it’s a community, and that community can be a little feisty.

Apparently a common problem in this surprisingly exclusive community is banishment. But the site doesn’t just ban a person; it does so without telling the victim. Fear of confrontation? Gerald Webber writes about this rude phenomenon.

Honest truth, I’m not even going to bother to start a new reddit account, because what gives reddit the right to delete my account without warning or notice.

And I don’t appreciate the fact that individual moderators have the ability to delete my submission just because they don’t like it or have a submission of their friends they want to promote. I don’t have proof that they are doing this but its simple to see, if you give these types of powers to users, they will abuse it discreetly.

The Internet Journal (the source of the picture above) addresses the issue in its article about the FAQs of Reddit.

Why are my comments invisible to everyone except myself?

The reason: you are banned, my friend. Reddit way of banning is really unique (and can be treated differently).

I call it “ghost banning” – you think you still exist but no one can see you any more. You still come daily, vote for stories and leave comments but your efforts are invisible to the community- because you no more exist, sorry.

As we said in class, “users are a necessary evil.” Banning people, indiscriminately, gives the message to users and contributers that they’re not necessary in this superior community. Big mistake. And, banning without even informing the person is just bad form.

As we work and study social media throughout this class, I am beginning to feel that the Internet world is run by a group of powerhouse search engines and social media platforms. Up until recently, those entities only competed against their own kind: Microsoft and Yahoo compete against Google, and Twitter and LinkedIn war to knock Facebook of its newly built pedestal. But now, now things are getting ugly because the newest threat to Google isn’t Yahoo or even Bing; it’s Twitter.

Lew Moorman makes the following point:

There are some things Twitter is just flat out better at for getting information than Google. Here are just a few: researching companies, products and services for real customer feedback, breaking news and live events/conference updates. It is not a total threat but Twitter is so superior in these areas that people will indeed make the effort to search somewhere new to get the information. I do.

He goes on to give an example that blogs are tweeted and retweeted, so searching for a topic in Tweet Search provides more up tho the date and accurate than the one hit provided in the Google search. I find this interesting because once again, user-generated content is beginning to topple the ivory towers of the more structured entities, such as those that would come up on a Google search. If someone Google’s a news story, that person will likely get the version from CNN and MSNBC. Those sites have stories that are reported on and updated by a small staff of reporters, maybe only one. A Twitter search, however, will yield tweets from many people, some of whom may have more timely, and others may be first-hand witnesses.

This data is gold… The more info [Twitter] get[s], the more value they create. How will they use it? Well, we will see. But, if I was Google, I would be paying attention.

Check out this video from Newsy.com on wether Twitter is a threat to Google.

I found this great picture of Twitter’s history.

This one- number five- really deserved its own post.

Botanicalls

This is really odd and remarkably cool.  A person can buy the Botanicalls sensor and place it in the soil of the potted plant.  A built in controller translates the readings to information” that can be sent over the internet through an embedded ethernet connection.”  Essentially, a thirsty plant can tweet its owner that it needs water, and then it can tweet a thank-you, really “water me please” and “thank you.”

One interesting thing about Twitter, and something I certainly didn’t know, is that only 11% of the users are between 12 and 17 years old. So, teenagers are not responsible for the drastic increase in its popularity.  Adults are the primary users.  And the question is- for what?

One

I personally find Twitter to be a great tool for cultivating an audience.  I tweet about my writing, what I read, and anything else that springs to mind in that arena.  Here’s an example of some of my followers I have gained using this fairly basic idea:  writersjobs, eBooksReviewer, LATimesBooks, and something called Literature_Book, though I’m not quite about that one.  Among these entities, I have actual real, live people as followers as well.  If I tweet about a blog post and put a link to it, I’ll have a huge increase in comments, which translates to readers- an audience.

Two

I also use Twitter to keep track of events that interest me.  For example, I follow the New York Times, Huffington Post, and my favorite columnist, and Newsweek, to name a few.  The tweets from the above are usually intriguing and informative.  For me, reading the Twitter updates allows me to consume a large amount of information by taking very small bites.

Three

Some use Twitter for professional networking.  I personally think this platform is a great deal more friendly than Linked In.  And, I hear that Twitter and Linked In are now friends, so people can use their contacts in both and cross reference those who are on both.

Four

According to some of my reading, Twitter has a number of applications that can be used to tweet reminders, such as doctor appointments and things to pick up at the grocery store.

I am posting what I will present on Monday evening. I had done quite a bit of my research earlier and posted it, so I apologize for the unavoidable repetition in summarizing my area of focus.

The importance of video on news websites, specifically hyperlocal ones.

News is a consumer product. There’s no way around that idea. Many have it to sell and others give it away for free, but it’s a commodity heavily traded on the Internet.

Video is key to selling that product.
• It increases page rank. If you’re not on Google, then where are you?
“Web videos…help to insure that [a] website will be seen by others. Most search engines now include web video in their evaluating of a websites value, which directly relates to the site’s search engine placement. Like photos, blogs, and text, web video now weighs in heavily when search engines decide how high in their placement to list a site.”

• It increases (sometimes doubles) the amount of time a person spends on a site. This is important because the attention span of a web user can be only minutes.

• It’s interactive. Unlike an advertisement that subjects a viewer to the video or add, a web video is a choice. When a person clicks to voluntarily view a video, he or she is already making a commitment. In my opinion a viewer is far less likely to stop viewing a reasonably timed video than he or she is to stop reading an article. Videos simply hold a person’s interest more. We’re a visual culture, and video has the advantage of being entertaining and visually appealing (unlike print).

• It’s easy. People have no time these days. Video is quick and easy to consume and easy to share with others. We have viral videos, not viral text.

• It’s expected. Major national news sites have been incorporating video for years, and they have only increased their use of it. When people view or read the news on the Internet, they expect a certain type of content and form. They may not expect CNN, but the more familiar they are with the site, the more comfortable they are, the more user friendly they feel it is, and the more likely they are to come back to it.

A note about user generated video (citizen journalism)

Joan Stewart writing for The Publicity Hound makes the point that user-generated video is growing in importance as news staff is being cut.

• It allows people who are witnessing breaking news to record it and send it to the news stations. With limited staff, journalists can be everywhere, and even if they could, they can’t travel at the speed of light. Sometimes the most accurate and up-to-the-date coverage comes from someone recording video with a cell phone.

• It opens the door for anyone to submit video, and it doesn’t have to be breaking news.

She quotes Jeff Crilley, a Texas reporter: “If you deliver powerful video on a slow-news day, you could be the lead story.” He recalls a story of a high school senior who was dying of cancer. People didn’t think he was going to live to see graduation, so the entire school held an impromptu graduation ceremony at her house. As student shot a video of the event and sent it to the TV station. The station aired it, and a “media frenzy” followed. The video aired nationwide. And, that TV station had it first.

A news website, even a hyperlocal one, or especially a hyperlocal one, would be crazy to not have video on its page. Video has the capability to grab people’s attention, inform them, move them, and make them want to come back to the page. And, a satisfied customer is one who returns over and over again to buy the product.

If we continue with Courtney’s earlier notion, which we discussed in class, that browsing the internet is akin to window shopping, then video is a website’s window display. Corey Lopardi makes the very interesting point that video on websites is far more powerful than any other kind of advertising because it’s interactive.

Unlike commercials on television, which are a passive form of advertising, viewers see web videos because they choose to watch them. This makes them more receptive to your message. By clicking on your video they’re giving you the permission to inform and entertain them. Video is a great way to explain important or complicated procedures in a simple visual manner that your customers can understand.

Though in thinking of a hyperlocal website, the idea of being able to “explain important or complicated” or even advertise as a whole may not necessarily be a priority… or is it. News is a product. Many people are selling it; some are giving it away, but one cannot escape the fact that it is a commodity. If people like the product they will return for more because they trust the brand. Being a person’s main source of news is as important for a company to have a loyal customer. So, I think it’s important to continually think of the readers of the news as consumers, consumers who we want to return.

One of the most important things for a company to first establish is traffic to the store, or in our case, the site. Video is not only entertaining, but also, it provides the site with a far higher likelihood of being picked up by a search agent. Let’s face it, if the site isn’t coming up on a Google search, it may as well not exist. Lopardi explains this effect of video:

Web videos also help to insure that your website will be seen by others. Most search engines now include web video in their evaluating of a websites value, which directly relates to the site’s search engine placement. Like photos, blogs, and text, web video now weighs in heavily when search engines decide how high in their placement to list a site. Videos can also be placed on hosting sites like YouTube, Google Video, Vimeo and others to drive potential customers all over the world to your website.

A blog on Outerbox Design points out that having video on a site will sometimes “double the time a visitor spends on that page.” He explains how this will inevitable increase the site’s conversion rate. Now, the customer has become more than someone who browsed the window displays. He or she has come into the store and has been intrigued enough to look through the inventory.

One may ask how much video should a news site have, especially one that aims to be taken seriously. Journalism.org looked at three major, highly rated, news sites and studied their home pages for two hours. CNN had 29 video links, 20 were recorded and edited site videos, 2 were user generated, and 7 were live videos. MSNBC had 45, all of which were recorded and edited. And, Fox News had 31; 25 of them were recorded and edited, and 6 were live feeds. These numbers do not even take into consideration podcasts. This is not my way of saying, well, other sites are doing it too! But… they are. While these mammoth sites are not the direct competition of the hyperlocal ones, they do set a standard and become a model of what people want and expect when they search for news online.

Ever since people have gone to the internet for news, they have desired for it to be more entertaining. The internet was such an excitingly different platform from newsprint. The web content, the quality of the writing, the efficiency of the layout are all extremely important to the success of a site, but video gets them in the door and entices them to stay a little while.

As we have been reading about whether online news media can fill the void inevitably left by the dying industry of print news, I have concluded that one of the most important steps new media can take in doing so is to first acknowledge that a void exists. I think one of the major fallbacks of new media is  its  notion that one technology is simply replacing another.  A surprisingly unsubstantial article likens the change to going from horse and buggies to automobiles.  However, someone who commented on the post made the very good point that we are not seeing the evolution of vinyl to CD.

New media is not simply a different platform for the same quality of news found in newspapers.  So, the void is in the level of journalism, such as investigative reporting, not usually found in blogs.  The desired and thriving platform is one that provides immediate, remarkably current information, access to as many different sources as a person could click on, and abundance.

In asking myself if the two will meet, I, without having to search too far, found Google FastFlip. It’s Google’s answer to having the best of both worlds. And, while I am beginning to have concerns over Google’s monopoly over the internet and information in general, I have to admit, it’s a pretty good site- damn.

Everyone knows what is causing the dilemma the newspaper industry is currently facing, especially small, local papers. Few people will pay for news that they can get for free. Makes sense to me. A lot of news sites offer, with varying degrees of value, local news.

CTCentral and Topix are some that offer news of central Connecticut. However, CTCentral more or less refers readers to the local papers by offering the links to them on one side and little or no original content (not from the paper). Topix does a fair job of showing the major news stories of any specific town. The interesting thing about this site is that while newspaper sites will close articles for comments after a certain amount of time, Topix doesn’t do that. The result is news stories that have become discussions, nearly creating a hybrid of Twitter and the local newspaper website. Nixle functions entirely differently. It’s free, and people can register, submit their location, and receive alerts in the form of text messages. Typically, the alerts are from the local police department, so immediately, and by phone, someone can know about a nearby traffic accident or criminal activity.

The Raw Story features an article that discusses possible strategies for newspaper survival. One recommendation is that they use hyperlocal sites as potential models. The article has a quote from an opinion piece, which appeared in the New York Times, by David Swenson:

In a recent opinion piece in the Times, David Swensen, the chief investment officer at Yale University, and Michael Schmidt, a financial analyst, argued that US newspapers should be turned into “nonprofit, endowed institutions — like colleges and universities.”

On the other hand, The Chicago Tribune will be implementing an entirely different strategy. For a week, the paper plans to not run AP articles to test readers desire for them. This experiment will apply to only print newspapers. I wonder about the effectiveness of this test because few people will subscribe or unsubscribe to a paper based on one week’s worth a issues. To me, this situation seems like an injured person using anything, any scrap of cloth, to stop heavy, heavy bleeding. I feel bad for the newspaper industry- not bad enough to subscribe to a paper- but bad. However, the paper is demonstrating desperation and a severe laps in judgement. If something is failing, why remove one of the most valuable and desired aspects? Why lessen the quality just to see if the readers notice enough to cancel a subscription?

The future of local news really exists in the smaller, non-profit , or hyerlocal sites. Now, it’s up to that industry to grab the reigns and produce something worthy of replacing the print paper.

In 2005, Dave Taylor said the following about Meetup beginning to charge a fee for its service:

When your business is a commodity service, how do you survive the transition from free to paid without sweetening the transaction? The answer: You don’t.

And that’s sad, because Meetup.com was a fascinating little company.

I joined Meetup in 2007, and I admit that I have a different perspective because I did not know it when it was completely free. However, I find the “commodity service” to a rather intelligent business design. Firstly, a person can register with the site, join multiple groups, attend the “meetings,” comment on the group’s page, and send direct messages to the other members and the organizer for free. The site doesn’t charge someone until that person decides to create his or her own meetup group. And as someone who has done this, I can say that the fee is quite reasonable ($15 a month for 3 months- the price, of course, decreases if more months are purchased at a time).

In any case, I find that the fee does a number of things: allows Meetup to continue to function successfully, weeds out the people who just want to start a group thus leaving people who are at least serious enough about their subject to spend the money, and keeps the site from being completely overrun with a ridiculous amount of groups who have very few members. And, in the two years that I have been using the site, with increasing frequency, I have not encountered any advertising or signs that the site has sold my email. Suffice to say, I am fairly pleased with the platform and feel that Taylor was incorrectly presumptuous in thinking that charging for the service was company suicide.

Clay Shirky addresses the Meetup phenomenon in Chapter 8 of Here Comes Everybody.

By registering people’s interests and location, Meetup can identify latent groups and help them come together. Heiferman bet that all over the United States (and later, the world) latent groups would be happy to get together if someone solved the coordination problem.

I completely agree. Meetup serves a growing sect of the population- people who have too little time to cultivate groups around them, keep them alive, and find others with common interests. And, while I’m sure the list of popular groups listed on page 197, which range from witches to Tori Amos, is accurate for 2008, I find that groups are forming as more social communities where the people share a very generalized interest (such as dining out) or as business networking opportunities.

I had a great deal of apprehension when the internet became so popular that people spent more time with their computers than interacting with 3-dimensional people. However, as Shirky continually points out, the internet is becoming an enormous platform for groups and communities to interact. Meetup took the notion of bringing people with commonalities together to a level that is accessible to all and functions- so far- rather smoothly. Altering its system from free to fee-based didn’t destroy it: it put a value to it.

This is an interesting video about Meetup, a bit odd, but pretty good.