As blogging and ways to monetize high-traffic content evolve, the pairing off of power bloggers into friends, allies, and business partners becomes more interesting.
The lotto-sized win in the battle for high-power friendships is, as everyone knows, Mike Arrington. To be a FOA (friend of Arrington) is to be anointed into a lucrative Web 2.0 economy.
As I watched the Winer-Scoble-Israel vs. Arrington-Feldman-Calcanis feud this past week, I had some of my own observations about the tricky aspects of navigating blog-related friendships and partnerships.
On one side we had Shel, tormented by puppeteer Feldman, sworn to go after Winer next, who's BFF is Scoble, whose old company fired Feldman.
On the other side we had Feldman, fallen into a potentially great mainstream deal with some non-mainstream (and I would argue some not-so-funny) content coming back from the archives to bite him in the ass, backed by the newly-retired Calcanis whose business interests align with those of Feldman, who spends a whole lot of time at the business/home/Internet-economy of Arrington.
This is the point at which I state: Blogging makes for some strange bedfellows.
The popular M.O. of the A-List guys during a high-profile Internet dust-up is to call on their friends to back them up. This means they ask their friends to call off the dogs or to incite the mob (depending upon which side of the equation they're on), to make a public statement of support or perform a public shunning (depending upon which side of the equation they're on), to absolutely and without question choose sides.
And choosing sides can suck. Because the web is hyperlinked, sides don't always make sense. (I know this is true when I find myself aligned with Dave Winer.)
We are not linear here. We are human and networked. Our relationships are at the same time deep and distant, meaningful and sometimes non-sensical.
But for many, our reputation is important.
By reputation I don't mean, "He's a great guy," or "She's a smart lady." You can have a reputation for being entertaining, obnoxious, brilliant, an asshole, an expert in a particular field, a mom, a dad, a cancer survivor, and most likely you are a rich combination of these characteristics which inform the stories you tell online.
Our archives tell our story not just chronologically, but in relationship to others, among the links in and links out. Asking anyone to read us from front to back before making a judgment as to the kind of person we are is asking a lot. People aren't going to examine all of our posts--they're going to read our front page, the last thing we said, or the thing that someone else points them to--even if that thing is old and we decided it was stupid a long time ago.
That's why emerging tools and technology for compiling and tracking our participation and reputation over time and across social media interest me.
These tools can take the legacy of our contributions and help new readers understand not just our content, but our context. We are more than a single post or video - we are our collected pixels spread out over space and time.
I think these tools will give us new freedom in our friendships, and require less side-taking requirements on behalf of friends who find themselves in compromising positions.
The ability to track our participation and reputation across the net lets us take risks without tossing our entire body of work down the toilet. It gives me the freedom to stand up like a sniper bitch on occasion without compromising my Internet reputation as a "nice lady" (cough) altogether.
I empathize with Feldman's friends for their troubles over the last week even though I think he's a cry-baby for thinking that shock-jock content might not come back to bite him as he sought out mainstream deals.
I support those who spoke out on the important issues around the whole fiasco. I also support those who didn't choose sides or participate in the discussion, even though I think the discussions it spawned were valuable and tremendous and much can be gained by taking part.
But not everyone is required to weigh in, nor should they be. If we were to pick all the issues we care about and try to participate in all of them, we could never keep up. If we were to jump into every debate, every conflict, we could lose our minds. It is up to each of us to decide what conversations are important to us, and I don't assign blame for opting out of those I think are significant.
Taking it back to friendship, this is important to me because:
I WILL NOT make a public statement every time an online friend does or says something stupid, or something I don't agree with.
I WILL NOT LET you infer from my silence that I agree or disagree with them.
I ABSOLUTELY reserve the right to remain friends with my friends - or part ways - without a defending my decision; and what I may say to them in private or public about a particular post or comment is up to ME.
Of course, there are more complexities to the company we keep online. And as time goes on, things make less sense than they ever did. I think this is a good thing, but some days I'm not so sure.
Last week was one of those days.
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Showing posts with label Deep Thoughts on Social Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deep Thoughts on Social Media. Show all posts
July 12, 2008
January 18, 2008
Before There Was Content, There Was Conversation
Brian Solis has a great post on conversation and value that talks about how to get a fresh drink of water from the firehose of content streaming across the Web. While the proliferation of living online content started with "pushbutton publishing for the people," (thank you Ev and Blogger-of-old), it's come to a point where we're losing the 'people' behind the 'pushbuttons.'
According to Brian: "...the barrier to entry has been lowered to a point where new user-generated content is only going to increase in volume and frequency and not necessarily in value along the way. But, for those who pay close attention to the shift in the behavior of adoption, creation, and consumption of media in all forms, it is also blinding with insight."
While I bristle old-school-style at the word "value" as it relates to conversation -- conversation being something so subjective and personal to a hippie blogger like me that talking about distilling value from it feels creepy -- I have to, at the same time, admit he's onto something. And that's NOT just because we work together in the PR-osphere.
Because while I agree with him, I have to find a better word than "value" so I don't trigger another episode of hives.
Not so long ago, Scoble and I tossed around the idea of engagement. I called it the likeability factor. Sure I'll bring you my little piece of traffic when I hit your site whether I like you or not. But unless you engage with me in some meaningful way, in a way that goes beyond content into context and relevance to my experience, my heart, my passion, then my little piece of traffic is worth far less than someone who actually comes toward you because they like you, they think they like you, or even because they like to hate you.
Brian gets to the crux of it here:
"It’s not just about the source, it’s about the dialog that ensues and the ideas and discoveries that emerge along the way.
"This goes beyond the original premise that anyone with an important idea or thought will simply blog it. In my experience, the most enlightening part of any topic is always the conversation…and in the world of Social Media, that conversation is in the form of the very actions that are triggered by the original topic."
In talking about mechanisms to help sift through noise, to find every participant's strong and true signal, Brian makes a valid point about what's downright exhausting for those of us trying to participate in discussions on blogs and other social media:
"...you find brilliance, perspective, and new opinions that allow a topic to genuinely flourish. At the same time, you can also find a series of comments that are completely pointless and distracting--that take away from the value of the conversation."
At the same time, again, combining "value" with "conversation" does make me a bit hivey. I have to ask: Whose value? Whose conversation? And who's measuring?
It is critical that the mechanism for discerning 'value' or 'engagement' or whatever we call it never, not ever, throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Let me say that again: It is critical that the mechanism for discerning 'value' or 'engagement' or whatever we call it never, not ever, throw out the baby with the bathwater.
That's what concerns me about the idea and exercise of discerning value from conversation. BUT it is also where new technology and tools can level the playing field so that Big-V-Value does NOT equal the Gold Standard Techmeme-type algorithm.
What we need are ways to ensure that even the quietest, meekest voices can be heard, and that even the most critical, contrary opinions are voiced. Without that, we become a little dumber every day from the resounding homogeny of our wham-bam discourse.
The annoying leaderboard popularity metric can be changed forever if we find new ways to elevate voice based on participation ACROSS the continuum of social media, and across the length and legacy of our online lives. If our history mattered, if our track record and reputation was part of the living web.
I want my conversational legacy, I want to control it, I want to track it across media types and tundras, and I want you to know me. I want to give you a bridge to me now, then, and later.
That way when I end up in a kurfuffle, debacle, or literal Federal Case, let's just say, you've got the proof in my pudding that doesn't demand you sift through six years of blog archives here, five years on Blog Sisters, five other sites, and thousands of comments I've made to make an informed opinion on Who I Am.
Brian makes a great point about losing ourselves and our friends within the layers of archives, about how we've sacrificed substance for currentness:
"...we’re groomed to think that older posts are also aging in context and relevance. Unfortunately, rather than continuing to live, breath, and evolve, these discussions are often buried by new content often to be recreated from scratch elsewhere. How quickly we move away from what could become timeless masterpieces."
I've been searching for a way to easily organize my most meaningful content for years--WAY before we called it content. And it would be even better if my friends and readers were the ones doing that for me as a natural part of their participation.
Anyway, there is more to think about here, but I wanted to get started on thinking it through, and point you to Brian who takes it further than I have brain cells or time for at this late hour, EST.
;-)
---
According to Brian: "...the barrier to entry has been lowered to a point where new user-generated content is only going to increase in volume and frequency and not necessarily in value along the way. But, for those who pay close attention to the shift in the behavior of adoption, creation, and consumption of media in all forms, it is also blinding with insight."
While I bristle old-school-style at the word "value" as it relates to conversation -- conversation being something so subjective and personal to a hippie blogger like me that talking about distilling value from it feels creepy -- I have to, at the same time, admit he's onto something. And that's NOT just because we work together in the PR-osphere.
Because while I agree with him, I have to find a better word than "value" so I don't trigger another episode of hives.
Not so long ago, Scoble and I tossed around the idea of engagement. I called it the likeability factor. Sure I'll bring you my little piece of traffic when I hit your site whether I like you or not. But unless you engage with me in some meaningful way, in a way that goes beyond content into context and relevance to my experience, my heart, my passion, then my little piece of traffic is worth far less than someone who actually comes toward you because they like you, they think they like you, or even because they like to hate you.
Brian gets to the crux of it here:
"It’s not just about the source, it’s about the dialog that ensues and the ideas and discoveries that emerge along the way.
"This goes beyond the original premise that anyone with an important idea or thought will simply blog it. In my experience, the most enlightening part of any topic is always the conversation…and in the world of Social Media, that conversation is in the form of the very actions that are triggered by the original topic."
In talking about mechanisms to help sift through noise, to find every participant's strong and true signal, Brian makes a valid point about what's downright exhausting for those of us trying to participate in discussions on blogs and other social media:
"...you find brilliance, perspective, and new opinions that allow a topic to genuinely flourish. At the same time, you can also find a series of comments that are completely pointless and distracting--that take away from the value of the conversation."
At the same time, again, combining "value" with "conversation" does make me a bit hivey. I have to ask: Whose value? Whose conversation? And who's measuring?
It is critical that the mechanism for discerning 'value' or 'engagement' or whatever we call it never, not ever, throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Let me say that again: It is critical that the mechanism for discerning 'value' or 'engagement' or whatever we call it never, not ever, throw out the baby with the bathwater.
That's what concerns me about the idea and exercise of discerning value from conversation. BUT it is also where new technology and tools can level the playing field so that Big-V-Value does NOT equal the Gold Standard Techmeme-type algorithm.
What we need are ways to ensure that even the quietest, meekest voices can be heard, and that even the most critical, contrary opinions are voiced. Without that, we become a little dumber every day from the resounding homogeny of our wham-bam discourse.
The annoying leaderboard popularity metric can be changed forever if we find new ways to elevate voice based on participation ACROSS the continuum of social media, and across the length and legacy of our online lives. If our history mattered, if our track record and reputation was part of the living web.
I want my conversational legacy, I want to control it, I want to track it across media types and tundras, and I want you to know me. I want to give you a bridge to me now, then, and later.
That way when I end up in a kurfuffle, debacle, or literal Federal Case, let's just say, you've got the proof in my pudding that doesn't demand you sift through six years of blog archives here, five years on Blog Sisters, five other sites, and thousands of comments I've made to make an informed opinion on Who I Am.
Brian makes a great point about losing ourselves and our friends within the layers of archives, about how we've sacrificed substance for currentness:
"...we’re groomed to think that older posts are also aging in context and relevance. Unfortunately, rather than continuing to live, breath, and evolve, these discussions are often buried by new content often to be recreated from scratch elsewhere. How quickly we move away from what could become timeless masterpieces."
I've been searching for a way to easily organize my most meaningful content for years--WAY before we called it content. And it would be even better if my friends and readers were the ones doing that for me as a natural part of their participation.
Anyway, there is more to think about here, but I wanted to get started on thinking it through, and point you to Brian who takes it further than I have brain cells or time for at this late hour, EST.
;-)
---
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