Mainsail | News from the Web

Is Twitter a waste of time?

Mark White — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:27:40 +0000

Do you wonder about the value of twitter, either from a personal or a business point of view? If so, you’re likely among the 60% of Twitter users (updated information here) who created an account, experimented briefly and then left it behind. If so, consider giving twitter a second chance. As part of a larger discussion about twitter and social activism - Can Twitter Lead People to the Streets - Howard Rheingold, lecturer at Stanford and U.C. Berkeley had this observation:

“As for Twitter, I’ve found that you have to learn how to make it add value rather than subtract hours from one’s day. Certainly, it affords narcissism and distraction. But it also makes possible the self-organization of the fluid forums that I learned (via Twitter) to call “personal learning networks

Rheingold’s idea of a personal learning network is nothing more than your own unique mix of followers and followed that you develop on Twitter and who become your personal community of “authoritative sources and credible co-learners “. The range of your community is only limited by the scope of your own interests, personal and professional.

Rheingold wrote a great primer for using Twitter to its full potential and to develop what he calls Twitter Literacy:

One of the most important challenges posed by the real-time, ubiquitous, wireless, always-on, often alienating interwebs are the skills required for the use of media to be productive and to foster authentic interpersonal connection, rather than waste of time and attention on phony, banal, alienated pseudo-communication.

His message is really an appeal to common sense – “tune” your network of people you follow, develop a judicious mix of personal banter as social glue and professional interaction that can provide real value, learn to recognize and offer authentic interaction -. “successful use of Twitter means knowing how to tune the network of people you follow, and how to feed the network of people who follow you.”

Does social media make social activism easy?

Mark White — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 19:28:14 +0000

Can social media become an effective tool for influencing mass behavior – for creating or nourishing social activist movements? Plenty of social media evangelists believe this capability has already been demonstrated –with the rise of the Tea Party movement or in candidate Obama’s presidential campaign. But does information exchange online correlate with behavior change? Maybe the social bonds we develop online do not lead to actual social activism but only to a more bland form of social networking which we mistake as ‘activism’. So argues Malcolm Gladwell in his recent New Yorker article – Small Change, Why the Revolution Will not be Tweeted.

I discussed exactly this issue previously in a post about an MIT study showing that although information spreads faster in the high quantity Facebook like social media networks actual behavioral change in these groups comes slower than in smaller, closer, strong tie social networks.

How do true believers in social media reconcile this contradiction. Well, one way some make it go away is by dumbing down the definition of activism so that easy actions, like signing an online petition are equated with very difficult and high risk actions that are a necessary part of real social activism.

As a case in point, Gladwell compares the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s which required real physical courage and a high level of commitment with our current idea of successful social engagement-our new activism lite, if you will: “Fifty years after one of the most extraordinary episodes of social upheaval in American history, we seem to have forgotten what activism is.” We confuse retweeting a post by our favorite blogger with driving through Mississippi as a civil rights activist in 1960 and literally risking life and limb.

Gladwell says:

The evangelists of social media don’t understand this distinction; they seem to believe that a Facebook friend is the same as a real friend and that signing up for a donor registry in Silicon Valley today is activism in the same sense as sitting at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro [North Carolina] in 1960.”

Gladwell goes on to make the point that as far as social activism is concerned we’re stuck with these weak ties and they don’t really lead to action: “weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism.”

In another recent article about social media and activism author William Powers acknowledges Gladwell’s point but looks for middle ground:

Twitter and Facebook aren’t going to save the world. But when used alongside other tools of human connectedness -- including some very old ones, like the face-to-face conversations, meetings and protests that drove the civil rights movement -- the new technologies can be extremely useful.

It's easy to fall into either blind evangelism of social media or luddite rejection. No technology has changed everything. As powerful as it is the internet won’t do that either. But it may gradually change the way we develop our real world strong ties.

We need to come back to an obvious truth. To redirect behavior, toward whatever the goal, is not a networking numbers game, it’s quality not quantity. This has been obscured because of marketers demand for access to the largest possible audience—a la Facebook. As UC Berkeley lecturer Howard Rheingold puts it: “Those who gain the know-how to transform networks into movements might gain the keys to power -- for better or worse -- in coming decades.”

Citigroup's failed attempt to bludgeon blogger with copyright law

Mark White — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 16:41:00 +0000

Yesterday, Citigroup tried to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

They went after blogger Doug Henwood who had posted a 2009 Citigroup research report dealing with the (then) upcoming Government run stress tests being administered to the major banks.

The stress tests, you'll recall, were meant to assess the strength of the banks' balance sheets and to justify, in the views of many, the enormous bailouts the banks were receiving at the time. The document is apparently embarrassing to Citigroup since it confirms what many understood to be an extremely softball approach by the government regulators towards the banks.

Citigroup lawyers, wanting to pressure Henwood to remove the document from his blog, sent what is called a DMCA takedown notice (referring to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) to WordPress where Henwood hosts his blog. WordPress acted immediately to block Henwood’s access to his own blog until he agreed to take down the document: Henwood explained:

I couldn’t post anything to this blog. Once I said "Yes, Sir," my posting privileges were restored. The document was, of course, deleted.

Of course that is only the beginning of the story as far as the document and it's exposure on the internet. Later the same day, the story was picked up by well known economist, blogger and U.C. Berkeley professor Brad DeLong who wrote a post entitled Citigroup's View of the Obama Administration in February 2009... where he not only quotes from large sections of the report itself but he also provides a link for readers to download the actual document from his own site. Now the story was out and naturally, the news of the Citigroup attempt to quash the document spread and an article appeared on popular website Salon.com where Andrew Leonard posted this - Citigroup's doomed attempt to erase the past, in which he discusses the contents of the document and Citigroups attempts to make it go away.

So what was the legal basis for Citigroup's action? The Digital Millenium Copyright Act was passed in 1998 and meant to provide legal ammunition against various forms of digital piracy. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation

in practice, the DMCA [has] done nothing to stop "Internet piracy." Yet the DMCA has become a serious threat that jeopardizes fair use, impedes competition and innovation, chills free expression and scientific research, and interferes with computer intrusion laws.”

Understanding the original intent of the DMCA at least as it was stated at the time it was passed makes DeLong's comment about inappropriateness of the use of this law in this case all the more understandable:

Today--nineteen months after this document was written--it is of historical interest only: none of Citigroup's paying clients would pay a cent for the information contained in it, for nobody could in any way profitably trade today on Citigroup's February 2009 analysis of the policies of the Geithner Treasury.

Whatever you think about the DMCA, it should not be used to prune the historical record of primary sources about how various economic policies were perceived at the time.

And whatever you think of the legal merits of the DMCA as it relates to this situation it clearly is the wrong tool. It's simply ineffectual- and worse, counterproductive. We see that a major corporation, Citigroup, finding itself at a loss as to how to deal with the inevitable escape of information onto the internet still looks for old time remedies that simply don’t work. And not only do they not achieve the intended goal but they actually make the situation even worse - at least from Citigroup's point of view. Citigroup's hamfisted attempt to remove this unwanted document from the internet only added fuel to the fire. How many people who had never heard of Henwood and knew nothing about this document are now curiously reading blogposts about it, downloading the report itself and passing it on to others?

Social Media PR crisis - a Groupon fail

Mark White — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 22:07:16 +0000

Social buying is a gathering wave with tantalizing possibilities that remain largely untapped. There are so many potential win-win situations where businesses can gain customers and customers can collectively negotiate bargains of one sort or another.

Having said that, what prompted a disgruntled customer to say that her experience with social buying company Groupon was "the biggest mistake of her life"? Here is the blog post gone viral that you don't want to see when you are the communications director of a social media dependent ecommerce company like Groupon.

So, what exactly is Groupon?

In their words:

Each day, Groupon features an unbeatable deal on the best stuff to do, see, eat, and buy in your city. By promising businesses a minimum number of customers, we get discounts you won't find anywhere else. We call it "collective buying power!"

In other words, Groupon is a kind of post modern coupon business that appears to be a good arrangement for all parties involved. But, to get a close up look both at how collective purchasing is a growing trend PLUS how social media can come back to bite you, read the blog post by Jessie, the owner of Posies Cafe in Portland Oregon and a former customer of Goupon, in which she tells her story.

She begins:

For months I’ve been thinking about whether or not to write a blog post about Groupon, and sharing the kind of experience it has been for the business. I’ve been weighing the possible repercussions of such a candid post as well, but after today, and having to decline a longtime customer’s Groupon for being past the expiration date, she asked that I share with everyone the reality of Groupon.

Jessie goes on to describe in detail how the Groupon experience turned into a near disaster for their business when a stream of heavily discounted Groupon purchases led to a large financial loss.

And how did Groupon respond to Posies Cafe owner who had characterized her experience with Groupon as "the biggest mistake of her life".

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason posted a response on his official blog with the remarkably tone death title 'Too much of a good thing?' which almost sounds like he is taunting the Posies owner. He reminds us of the job interviewee who tries to answer that question asking them to describe their weaknesses by saying that 'maybe sometimes they just push themselves too hard'. He does go on to allow that yes, their record isn't perfect, there may have been the occasional incident of 'cupcake shops running out of batter' [as a result of using Groupon] but that he didn't address those on his blog in the past because they were so atypical and insignificant compared with all the companies they have helped.

Mason goes on:

Finally, for what it’s worth, it’s painful for us at Groupon to read stories like this.
When we started this company three years ago, we were actually a platform for groups to organize action and fundraise for causes and shared interests (one of which ended up being group purchasing). When we started Groupon, what got us excited about it is the win-win we’re creating – every day we’re breathing life into great local businesses, while at the same time making it easier for people to get out of the house and experience life. It sounds like corporate BS,
but the only thing that makes this worth doing is that we’re helping people. We’re extremely proud that most businesses consider Groupon the best form of advertising out there, but won’t rest until we've made Groupon work for everyone. We welcome your ideas!

Well, he's managed to add the expression 'BS' into corporate parlance but not to actually remove the substance itself from the content. This response is terrible, patronizing and not in any meaningful way taking any responsibility for the experience that his customer had. He also adds, without going into any actual details that "now that we know Posies had a problem, we have reached out to them so we can help".

Well, if that is true he doesn't actually explain in any way what they may have done for Posies.

Groupon and Posies also disagree on one very specific fact. According to Posies, Groupon would not allow them to cap the number of coupons they issued as part of the terms of their promotion. This would be a serious issue for any business - in effect a blank check to Groupon. However, Mason denies that this was the arrangement saying:

"I’ve confirmed that this isn’t true – we never told Posies they couldn’t cap their deal."

This is a key piece of the original complaint by Posies and it is hard to evaluate their side of the story without knowing if this was, in fact, the policy. If Posies posts a reply to Groupons reply I'll review that here. Some actual transparency from Groupon might be helpful.

Finally, in the comments section under Andrew Mason's blog post a commenter accurately observed:

"The only thing this excellent blog post is missing is just a tiny bit of humility."

To which Andrew Mason replied:

"...we certainly recognize that we are imperfect and we are eager to learn. The only reason we’ve made it this far is by listening to and respecting each and every customer like they’re the only one we’ve got, and that’s not going to change."

Translation of that exchange:
Commenter: You're not listening, this isn't a real apology or explanation.
Groupon: We don't need to. We have always done everything perfectly and will continue to do so.

Mason basically explains away the whole incident by offering up other success stories and saying what a great service they offer.

He offers this video of an enthusiastic Groupon customer who approaches his Groupon promotion like a general preparing for battle.

Maybe Groupon is the best thing since sliced bread. But this response to a social media pr crisis deserves a C-. Groupon may dress the pig in lipstick - they maintain the appropriately cool blog with the CEO talking directly to customers and going through the motions of responding to a significant social media challenge with a seemingly open and savvy social media response. But the substance of the response is lacking and the words ring hollow. The patronizing tone dominates their reply and does not help their image.

This picture is on the Groupon website on their About page with the caption,
The Groupon staff performs Bach BWV 248 No. 2 "Brich An, O Schones Morgenlicht" at the Chicago Lyric Opera, 10/27/09:

Older adults use of social media skyrockets in the last year

Mark White — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 22:07:42 +0000

When people think of internet use and social media there tend to be unspoken assumptions that older adults are not participating to the same degree as their younger counterparts. Well, think again. This appears to be old news. A recent report written by Mary Madden for the Pew Research Center details the significant increase in social media use among older demographics - a change that is most significant just in this past year. While use of social media has spread across all age groups the most dramatic increase has been in the 50 and older age group. Specifically, use of social media for this group has gone up from 22% to 42% - or in other words - almost doubled.

While social media use has grown dramatically across all age groups, older users have been especially enthusiastic over the past year about embracing new networking tools. Although email continues to be the primary way that older users maintain contact with friends, families and colleagues, many users now rely on social network platforms to help manage their daily communications—sharing links, photos, videos, news and status updates with a growing network of contacts.

The report identifies a number of reasons for this increased use, such as organizations like AARP working to promote social media participation among older adults. However, perhaps the dramatic increase may be more simply a result of a critical mass of internet use in that age group. More and more older people know of their peers' adoption of social media and this will certainly serve as a major encouragement to join for those who haven't already done so. Many older users have also recently experienced the quintessential facebook experience of reconnecting with old friends and classmates. This in turn becomes a powerful draw for others who have not yet participated.

Older adults use the internet in much the same way as other age groups, say for online banking or reading the news, but they also participate actively in networking activities with family and friends. And, as people age and become more susceptible to health issues the internet becomes more and more important as a networking lifeline and a source of information.

There are two activities which stand out among people living with chronic disease: blogging and participating in online health discussions. When other demographic factors are held constant, having a chronic disease significantly increases an internet user’s likelihood to say they work on a blog or contribute to an online discussion, a listserv, or other forum that helps people with personal issues or health problems.

The report also points out for us that social media can provide an effective and unusual venue for generations to 'intersect' on a daily basis.

It is a serious mistake to imagine that in spite of initial resistance to getting online, or a perhaps more slow adoption of online tools, older adults do not become as adept and committed users as younger people.

However, even though older adults may be among the most resistant to broadband, there is evidence that once these users get a taste of high-speed access, they often come to rely on the internet as an everyday utility in their lives.

For anyone whose organization reaches out to older adults this information is extremely important and exciting. Online opportunities for connecting with the older segments of our population are vast and growing.

See this summary chart from the Pew Research report:

Read the full report here.

What a new MIT study suggests about the future of online communities

Mark White — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:33:31 +0000

Sometimes a new scientific study reinforces our previously held beliefs, sometimes it challenges those beliefs and provides new insights. This new study by Damon Centola, an assistant professor of system dynamics and economic sociology at the MIT Sloan School of Management manages to do both.

Centola's study, The Spread of Behavior in an Online Social Network Experiment, appears in this month's issue of Science magazine and has some interesting, and counterintuitive things to tell us about how information spreads through online social networks and how that information may influence actual behavior.

Specifically, Centola set up two distinct types of online networks to see which one would be more effective in getting people to sign up for an online health care forum. Using 1,528 subjects he divided them into one group categorized as a 'long-tie' network, meaning an online community whose members are loosely connected with a large number of other members (friends?). In contrast, the second group he set up is called a 'dense cluster', meaning that an individual's connections to others may be fewer in number but denser in the sense that members of this type of group know each other well.

It was expected that information would flow quickly through the long tie network. What wasn't anticipated was the fact that behavior change, the actual act of signing up for the health forum, was slower in the long tie network. People in the dense cluster altered their behavior at a significantly higher rate.

In an article on MIT's site detailing the study they say:

Researchers often regard these dense clusters of connections to be redundant when it comes to spreading information; networks featuring such clusters are considered less efficient than networks with a greater proportion of long ties. But getting people to change ingrained habits, Centola found, requires the extra reinforcement that comes from those redundancies. In other words, people need to hear a new idea multiple times before making a change.

And, finally, they conclude:

People are more likely to acquire new health practices while living in networks with dense clusters of connections — that is, when in close contact with people they already know well.

Centola has made it clear that he considers this study incomplete in some ways and that it really suggests the need to continue with further studies to see how far these conclusions hold up in a more realistic setting. For example, signing up for a health forum may not present a high enough bar to really be representative of how people would behave in real life.

Advertisers, grass roots organizers, church leaders and anyone trying to influence the behavior of large numbers of people have long known that repeated exposure to an idea or product can lead to behavioral change over time. And this study really reinforces that conventional view. In the dense clusters, individuals respond eventually to the repeated exposure to what their 'buddies' were doing. More interesting is the counter intuitive finding that goes along with this: information spreads faster in the long tie networks but actual behavioral change comes slower. That's the key. So, in concrete terms, for anyone designing social media features or deciding how to focus their organization's social media efforts what does this suggest? It may lead us to question the conventional wisdom of the moment--the numbers are on Facebook, yes, but but could it be that our efforts might bear more fruit if they are simply more targeted. Niche social networks may ultimately be more important than the currently huge mega-networks like Facebook. The thousand-friends-facebook-pattern may even be a passing phase. Real bonds and real shared interests may ultimately count for more than the relative ease and speed of encounters in our presently more popular social media sites. That lasting and meaningful social networks--the dense clusters described in the article- are what keep people together and what allow them to influence each other' behavior is just the perfect case of 'plus ca change'...

See an interview with Damon Centola about the study:

Are you legally liable for comments posted on your website?

Mark White — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:53:59 +0000

Just a quick update to our previous column about why comments were worth the trouble. For those who worry about legal liability for what commenters may post on their site see this post about a recent legal ruling on exactly this question by Wendy Davis on Online Media Daily. In this case, a TV anchor sued her former employer, the TV station where she worked, for allowing allegedly libelous posts about her in the comments section of their website. The court's ruling says, in part:

Persons who claim that they were harmed by a website's publication of user-generated content may sue the third-party user who generated that content, but they may not sue the interactive computer service that enabled the third-party user to publish the content online," Guirola wrote. "Thus, an interactive computer service is entitled to immunity as long as it did not create or author the particular information at issue.

News aggregation: Quick Primer on Legality and Best Practices

Mark White — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:39:46 +0000

The Citizen Media Law Project has just issued a white paper entitled The Rise of the News Aggregator: Legal Implications and Best Practices.

The 29 page report, available in pdf format, outlines current legal issues related to news aggregation on the web and provides a manual of best practices that should be carefully read by anyone developing, running or contemplating a news aggregation site.

First of all, let's clarify the stakes. According to the report:

As the traditional media are quick to point out,
the legality of a business model built
around the monetization of third-party
content isn’t merely an academic question
– it’s big business. Revenues generated
from online advertising totaled $23.4
billion in 2008 alone.

I had to laugh when I read this. Does anyone besides me remember the vicious flamewars of 1995 about the possibility of, shudder, commercial use of the internet. So, the stakes are enormous, the ground is being contested and there is a relatively high level of uncertainty as to the outcome. Traditional media is being challenged on a number of fronts by online aggregators of all sorts. The details are all important, and in developing a news aggregation strategy it is essential to carefully read an excellent summary report such as this one in its entirety.

Nonetheless, here is a cheat sheet from the study that summarizes best practices:

BEST PRACTICES
If you are the creator of a news aggregation website, what should you do to protect yourself against lawsuits? Short of licensing all of the content you use, there are certain best practices that you can adopt that are likely to reduce your legal risk. 

Reproduce only those portions of the headline or article that are necessary to make your point or to identify the story. Do not reproduce the story in its entirety.

Try not to use all, or even the majority, of articles available from a single source. Limit yourself to those articles that are directly relevant to your audience.

Prominently identify the source of the article.

Whenever possible, link to the original source of the article.

When possible, provide context or commentary for the material you use.

Also, we'll add that one of the best practices is to not take away incentive for readers to go to the original source. And in that spirit we'll recommend you download the pdf and be sure not to miss their handy best practices summary on page 21.

SEO and the so-called Ground Zero Mosque

Mark White — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:49:04 +0000

It's a sad state of affairs, but a fact, that online search is structurally biased towards crowd mentality. So, say there is a term that becomes popular for some reason so that it sticks in people's minds. It is that term people will use to search for it online. So use of 'ground zero mosque' as inaccurate as it is ranks better in search results than, say, park51. And naturally, in order to garner better search results websites will use that term online. So the cycle goes.

Kelly McBride at Poynter online said it really well:

But now that the story has peaked, now that we know the real facts, can anyone possibly correct the record? Not if Google has anything to say about it.

That's because accurate or not, people are searching for the term "ground zero mosque." So if you want to reach people who are looking for information, you have to use that term.

3 essential things Medieval monks can teach you about using Facebook

Mark White — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 23:52:40 +0000

This little gem from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation may not be the most serious item to pass your desk today but it has to be the one that makes you laugh the hardest AND the one that you can most seriously relate to...either from one point of view or the other. Clearly, if you have ever either taught or been taught how to do something on the computer this is a reality check that can help you put it all in perspective.