Open The Dialogue

As PR practitioners, we’re paying close attention to how the media landscape (digital or otherwise) is evolving.  Usually, this is at a very granular level.  How a key magazine or newspaper folding might affect clients we do work for on a daily basis.  However, as an industry evolves, there is always opportunity to look at how it provides value on a daily basis.

In short, I’ve found this really interesting.  Finding out how new tools and technologies are helping change the face of news/journalism/the media and, most importantly, rise above the din.  There are two instances that I’ve come across in the past week that have stuck out a bit more than others.

• Kudos to NPR for making an automated Twitter account pretty impactful (it almost makes up for the fact that their videos are no longer embeddable but that is an argument I’ll make another day).  Via the Neiman Journalism Lab, they’ve created an experimental account that mines NPR’s archives trying it’s best to deliver contextual news.  This, usually, isn’t breaking stuff – it’s background.  It’s the information that helps us understand why and how current news items are relevant.  How it works:

NPRbackstory uses Google’s Hot Trends data to determine what topics people have suddenly started searching for in large numbers. It uses NPR’s API to search the archives, then uses Yahoo Pipes to create an RSS feed that then gets cycled into the NPRbackstory Twitter account.

The process isn’t perfect but this is a step in the right direction.

• Blogs and micromedia are also a hot-topic in government.  Should Twitter be on Capitol Hill?  Why should my Senator be blogging?  Senator Claire McCaskill takes this issues to task, pretty directly:

I use Twitter because no one can edit me. In a media world driven by an edited sound bite, and a Capitol Hill culture that parses, obfuscates, and works hard at saying nothing, we shouldn’t look down our noses at a few short declarative sentences. While this method of direct communication makes my staff nervous – they think it makes me look less “senatorial” — it is me.  I’m a Midwesterner, and this short simple way of speaking is my native tongue.

I especially enjoy her close.  ”Social media” is about real people, real conversations and our real lives.

Finally, it’s fun. Trust me when I tell you that part of the problem in Washington is that folks there take themselves way too seriously. As I tweet about my college basketball team,  global warming, my kids, reverse mortgages, music, and  tax policy, or as I Tumblr blog about rules of voting on the budget  and my creamed spinach recipe, I’m staying connected, grounded, and I have a smile on my face.

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.