Open The Dialogue

Larry King must have thought the whole thing was a joke.  In his YouTube response to Ashton Kutcher’s 1,000,000 follower challenge “Do you think you can take on an entire network? Do you know how big we are? Do you what CNN is?”

Larry, your question has been answered. CNN is traditional (or old) media.  Ashton is new media, and new media won.

CNN did not begin this battle empty-handed or alone. CNN had on-air reporters like Anderson Cooper and Erica Hill asking for followers. The CNN ticker gave updates of the race and broadcasted their Twitter handle to the masses. CNN even reached into its pocketbooks and purchased @cnnbrk to help its race.  Ashton on the other hand, only had ustream.tv, YouTube, and his followers yet he still won.

Why? Ashton won because he had a group of savvy, die-hard fans willing to promote his videos and his goals.  He won because he had the blogosphere buzzing about the gauntlet he had thrown down at CNN  He won because he took a silly event like gaining extra followers and made it into something worth caring about. And he won because he understood social media and in the end knew that it was about his fans 

This was a simple silly competition that CNN should have easily won. They had a trusted, 24-hour network to supply coverage, one of the most familiar faces in news, and multiple places to reach their huge audience. But because they didn’t own their brand on Twitter (@cnnbrk), because they didn’t interact with their brand evangelists, and because they didn’t understand the way the game is played, they lost.

Ashton versus CNN was a silly little game but the implications are much larger. Social media has flexed its muscle and shown that it’s here to stay, even against traditional media.  This loss shows that brands, even megabrands like CNN, cannot treat social media lightly any longer. They have to start listening to their consumers online and interacting in a new way.  Otherwise a newer, more agile brand will come in and present a challenge they cannot afford to lose.

A few days ago, a student and researcher at The Ohio State University announced a pilot study indicating that there is a link to Facebook users in college and lower GPAs. 

This topic has sparked some interesting conversation, not only about Facebook, but our habit of multitasking in general.

Frankly, I don’t buy it and here’s why:

1. The study surveyed 219 students – this is hardly enough to call an accurate and representative sample especially when there are more than 200 million active users on Facebook. While I realize that this may just be a start to their research or a pilot, they should really take a look at a larger sample to come to a conclusion rather than the .0001095 percent that was included in the study.
2. No one I knew in college spent ALL day on Facebook. The study states that those using Facebook are studying an average of 1-5 hours a week versus those non-users studying 11-15 hours a week. Now, is it just me or would those students be studying the same amount of time even without a Facebook account? There are a number of other activities including sports, socializing, video games, etc. that could be impacting a student’s “study time” besides their Facebook account.
3. Another element ignored by this study is timing. How long do you have to use Facebook until your GPA becomes “affected?” Are you safe if you’ve only been using it for a month and then cease all use or will you as well be doomed into the categorization having a poor GPA due to your Facebook account? Now that would be an interesting study.
4. I don’t buy that Facebook is the only social network to “harm a student’s GPA.” Have we looked at twitter? Friendfeed? Or LinkedIn? Are those affecting the college student’s ability to have a high GPA?

The foundation of this study and the argument it makes overall is weak.  People use social networks in their daily lives, not just in college and this trend continues to grow. This makes the idea of social networking as a whole more relevant than ever before – regardless of your age.  Of course, it takes time to build your social network online – just as it does to hold an in-person meeting with those in your “offline” network. 

Overall, I think it comes down to the fact that students are yes, spending time on Facebook, but I don’t think you can accurately make the argument that it is contributing to poor grades. If a student has the will to succeed, they will and Facebook isn’t going to stop them.

Here are a few other great posts that offer thoughts on the recent Ohio State University findings:

• Blisstree.com
• Wired’s Epicenter
• College-StartUp.com

While Twitter basks in the glow of a huge, front-page NYT Biz section article – are the villagers gathering, getting ready to “storm the castle”?  John Brissenden points to an interesting post by Andrew Davis @ TippingPoint Labs about Tumblr being the heir-apparent to all the buzz that got Twitter rolling off your parent’s tounges in the first place.  

Mmmm, hockey sticks!

1. A quick search on Google Trends for the phrase “Twitter Sucks” shows a HUGE spike starting in February of this year (10X more searches in March than in February.)
2. The recent explosion of a ‘vrial video’ about a fictional new nano-blogging site called Flutter has almost half a million views in the last week. (Or this video from a month ago with over 1.5 MM views.)
3. Last week, Twitter users were hit with the first ‘Twitter Spam Hack Attack.‘
4. People are quickly realizing that the more people you follow the less value you get out of the people you follow. I call this the Diminishing Tweet Value Theorem, which states that the value of your own twitter stream is inversely proportional to the number of people you follow.
5. The mainstream media has grasped a firm hold on pushing their @ user names (a sure sign it’s nearing the top of it’s escalation phase.)
6. Rumors are rampant about a potential Google acquisition and the debate about how exactly to monetize Twitter continues to escalate (another sure sign it’s heading towards the monetization phase of the Tippingpoint Labs New Media Life Cycle.)

While he admits that the evidence cited above is “fairly circumstansial,” taking a look at Gartner’s hype cycle below – it lines up with the general early adopter consensus I’ve seen going around the web and even in conversations with colleagues at MWW.  They’re conviced of some shark jumping going on when they get follow requests from their parents.

So, is Tumblr really next?  I think it’s too early to tell.  I have it run jratlee.com but while Andrew goes over some great background of the service in his post and looks at some interesting adoption rates (definitely click-through, it’s a great read) – Tumblr can be a lot of things to different people.

Twitter hit the scene by being one thing and having a concise purpose.  Although, being so concise might be what is taking Twitter towards the “trough” to begin with.  Andrew makes a great point towards the end of his post:

If Twitter is a babbling four year old, going on and on about nothing important, Tumblr is a smart yound adult digesting content, commenting on it and contextualizing it for their audience. That’s far more valuable.

Only time will tell on this one.

UPDATE:  Sarah Lacy joins the party, calling foul.  Her points make sense from a company existence but, sometimes, I wish TechCrunch would just think a bit more about how people actually use these tools instead of just the dollars and cents.

Recently I had the chance to interview John Paris, Director, Mobile Products of Time Inc. Interactive.  John’s had an interesting path in to mobile.  He started as a CNN radio anchor before becoming fascinated by mobile’s potential in 1999.  John has led the development and design of all the original CNN mobile services and is top mobile content producer.  He thinks that the iPod has changed the mobile world forever and shared with me his four keys to a successful mobile app.

1. Personalize Your Content-   Mobile devices are very personal.  It’s a small screen and the sessions are short. So personalize the app and focus on what the person wants.
2. Localization-  Mobile apps are use away from the office and away from the home.  People are more likely to need the info at these times, so make sure to leverage location-based services.
3. Community- Community can be the most dominate tool in networking today.  Allowing people to plan activities near where they are out and about can be a huge asset for your application.
4. Interactivity- Handheld communication devices like mobile phones are more inclined to interact with brands and people.   Allowing your application to comment, share or vote can provide a valuable consumer experience for your brand.

Thanks, John!

What are some of the best features in your favorite apps?

A BPP die-hard, I was skeptical of The Takeaway – seemingly NPR’s second stab at a hip, in-the-know, multi-medium news show.  Most days, I follow the RSS feed and actually listen-in on Friday mornings durring my commute.

Last Friday, I was treated to a surprise:  The Takeaway was asking their audience to play a massive game of Foursquare.  Throughout the show, listeners “checked-in” with updates from the mundane to the exciting.  Some were starting their day, some were already in the throes of closing out a week.  It was weird hearing these updates verbalized when you’re so conditioned to reading them in an endless stream of ephemera.  That might be why status update services like Twitter work so well/have been adopted so quickly but that is a post for another day.  You can click through to listen to some of the best ones they received.

Scott Lamb, senior editor at another personal favorite of mine – BuzzFeed, was also a guest on the show and broke down the appeal of these hip new social networks:

Like the absurd mundanity of Twitter, Foursquare encourages broadcasting the small stuff, letting people know where you went for lunch. And that’s exactly the appeal — get to know what I do, and you’ll get to know who I am. And there’s an undeniable joy at finding yourself near the top of the week’s leaderboard. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check in — I’m trying to earn some points here.

Much like CNN on Twitter, it’s always very refreshing seeing and experiencing mediums whom are undergoing massive change (in terms of consumption) embrace new technology that maybe their entire audience doesn’t get just yet but, most importantly, the passionate ones are already using.

Update:  Producer Jim Colgan gives the back-story to why they decided to experiment with Foursquare, etc.:

No major news was broken with this experimental journalism. But in many significant ways we broke down the barriers between the radio hosts and the radio audience. Even the people who didn’t call in were hearing about the people who did, fellow listeners whose experience they shared each time we played or read a response.