You can read the entire post here.

Register: http://microurl.com/92656466

A consistent theme from the webcast interviews that DecisionCast did at BlogOn drew on the convergence of traditional and new media. Media companies are starting to showcase social media technologies. And the newer social media companies are beginning to integrate audio and video for more vibrant social connections within their networks.

This is quite apparent at the Democratic National Convention. MSNBC has bloggers, the Associated Press has bloggers as does Knight Ridder, Boston Globe, etc.

But CNN loooks like it is outdistancing them all by teaming with Technorati. Technorati is covering more than 3 million blogs, looking at the convention from across the political spectrum.

For RSS Weekly, we'll interview Mary Hodder of Technorati to discuss the convention and how RSS and weblogs fit with traditional media. We'll be joined by Stowe Boyd, whose media company, Corante, has a blog, loose democracy. And we'll have Bill Kearney of Syndic8 as a guest, who will have insights and commentary about RSS and democracy.

Social media are another example of the demand side supplying itself. We're seeing this with open source software, with new standards like RSS, and with the new media we call blogs. We're even seeing it in movies such as Outfoxed, and with Internet radio (in spite of destructive fear-based regulation). None of these things came from the Big Boys. They came from you and me and the rest of us here.

Landscape

There is little point in defining Social Software, Social Media (a term coined by the BlogOn organizers), Search, Computing or Networking, except that new language parallels innovation. Here's my way of mapping the space, feel free to modify and make your own.

Social Software, a term coined by Clay Shirky, is the design of systems that supports groups with an underlying value proposition of building social capital...

A rather long post continues at Many-to-Many...

Why is RSS relevant?

I had lunch yesterday with Louis Moynihan and Robert Mendez of NetHawk, an interactive agency that is seeing a bit of change as advertising, search and RSS converge. For an advertising guy, Robert seems to really understand the whole concept of the semantic web and how it relates to his business. They're experimenting with RSS market syndication services as a better way for companies to get high search engine rankings but equally important, deliver relevant content. They're not offering paid search but instead, taking advantage of RSS and the information they can aggregate to get high search engine rankings for their clients with information that is relevant and robust for the individual who is seeking some new understanding and insight.

But as Robert and Louis explain, that's hard to do when the client is not invested in the content. They need to feel like the content is relevant. And that's the challenge with RSS. How do you make it relevant? How can you show the connection between RSS and the content they value most?

To hear this discussion from an advertising guy is heartening. But it comes from a guy who like many with this perspective, spent their formative years absorbing the unfolding events of the 1960s and 1970s. There's a comparison to today's events. People are engaging in the political process. In today's world, we see political events unfold and seek relevant information to make sense of what is happening. To illustrate, Robert said he stopped listening to commercial radio about 20 years ago. "Radio used to be great," Robert said. "But now half the time it is advertising." Increasingly, advertising is spreading across the web. Pages seemingly melt away for a video ad about breath mints.

This paid advertising is professionally developed content, which has far less value for people than the blogs people write, talking about what matters most. It is this information that is relevant. And RSS brings it forward for people to absorb.

I look forward to BlogOn so I can explore this issue of relevance with the smart group of people assembled at the event. I hope you can listen in to the discussion. It should be interesting.

Friday speakers (More to come. We'll post later with more
* Bill Schreiner, vice president, general manager, AOL Community Programming
* Barak Berkowitz, chairman, chief executive officer, Six Apart
* JD Lasica, Open Media Consulting Group
* John Roberts, CNET
* James Currier, founder, Tickle
* Andrew Anker, executive vice president, corporate development, Six Apart
* Max Montgomery, chief evangelist, Viditel
* Mike Jones, CEO, Userplane

I really appreciate Rachel's work on this, and her featuring me so much, but more importantly, it is one of the first articles I've seen that tries to define social media as a media issue, a technology, and an interaction between people across the web. We need more of that!

Hosted by Bay area bloggers Christian Crumlish, Tantek Celik, Cheyenne Burnsworth, Marc Canter, Mary Hodder Jonas Luster, this is a chance for everyone who's interested to hang out, talk, eat and meet, whether or not you're attending the conference.

Drinks and dinner should run about $25 per person--come for drinks at 6:30 and dinner at 7.

To RSVP, post a comment here, or add your name to the wiki>.(We are having some problems with this right now--use comments)
Map here.

Both Jay and Steve typically do high quality work individually as experts in their fields, but their teaming up is a great thing. A sample question:

RUBEL: Does disintermediation threaten PR? How should the profession react to the changes in how consumers get news?

ROSEN: I think public relations should first understand that to the extent that its art is a form of "spin"--whether it's reasonable spin, accepted spin, good spin, bad spin, terrible spin--it is selling a service for which there is less and less value, and less mind is paid to it. Spin was possible in the era of few-to-many media, and a small number of gatekeepers who could be spun.

There are fewer who listen (or have to listen) and more who hear only dull propaganda, witless repetition, one of the many forms of mindlessness to which citizens are subjected. Spin is also comedy to Americans, and John Stewart speaks with authority on it. PR does not because it believes, on the whole, in some right to spin-- all exceptions cheerfully granted. Plus, there's what Doc Searls once said to all the "pound the message home" pros, in any field: there is no demand for messages. Factor that possibility in if you want a bright future in any media field.

Today many knowledge monopolies are breaking up, and this corresponds with what the British media scholar Anothony Smith once identified as a shift "in the locus of sovereignty over text," a shift toward the public. We could say "toward consumers," but what Smith meant is that more power has fallen into the hands of the people who were mere receivers before. They are more sovereign-- as consumers, yes. But also as producers of their own media. Pickers and choosers.

My advice to PR people is to help citizens become more so-- more sovereign over information goods. Spin is not a good. Neither is a brick wall, or a blatantly one-sided story that cleverly coheres because it leaves out every single inconvenient fact. Public relations, if it wants to do good, should stand for real transparency in organizations, and genuine interactivity with publics. Want an issue in corporate PR? Freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom of interaction for company bloggers: how do we make it a practical reality?

Jay is bright, and when I say that, I don't just mean he's sharp. I mean his language and ideas have a brightness that just makes you want to read more because it's alive, relevant, useful, insightful. So don't be intimidated by the length of the post. He blogs one or two times a week in long essay form, and he once told me that people complain about that. But it's rich, good stuff, and if you care about where PR and journalism are going, and what online culture and activity are doing to this world, it's a must read.

WSJ should do this more often!

Blogs are not at all just one-way in their interaction, unlike journalism which is one way (though a couple of publications like Wired link out, and a few more have started, but it is extremely limited and they are still totally clueless about conversing with their audience so that doesn't happen at all). It is the social interaction of blogs that makes them a conversation, a multi-way interaction, and while few journalism outlets link back, the public is discussing news articles whether journalists like it or not. Journalists can join in, or at least read their readers thoughts on the day the stories come out. Or they can ignore them and be unaware of the conversations as the occur, but it means they are out of the loop with their readers and other reporters who are online blogging and interacting with readers.

Trustability on the internet, particularly with regards to blogs, has been discussed quite a bit on the blogosphere and in traditional media. Basically, whenever any journalist makes a statement dismissing blogs as untrustworthy, they are generally dismissed, at least online, because first of all, blogs are tool, as is newsprint, and what you write is flexible. It can be accurate or inaccurate depending on the person or publication. But all anybody has to to say is "stephen glass" and "jayson blair" and the whole argument is moot (see Adam Penenberg/Wired's article from last week on New Media's Age of Anxiety which covers this issue of the public's ability with the internet to cover journalists and Fisk them if they get it wrong -- Penenberg has a pretty full list of examples of Journalists making things up, including the May 14, 2004 UPI story that references a poll on Journalists relative truthworthiness to other professions, a poll which he says doesn't exist. He was also the journalist at Forbes who broke the Stephen Glass plagiarism story to begin with as well. Also note in his story that he links to everything he can to support what he is saying -- practically a requirement for blogging, but also a form of social interaction, and not often done by journalists, though Wired is one of the few publications to do this -- and they should. I hope he's also checking out who links to his story to see what readers thought about it.)

As far as I am concerned, Doc Searls, Jenny Levine, Ed Felten, Donna Wentworth, Jay Rosen, Ernie Miller and Dan Gillmor are far more trustworthy and accurate in their blogs, and often sources of reporting, than the NY Times will ever be overall, for a couple of reasons. I'd take Ed's analysis of any copyright/security/DRM issue any day of the week of an NYT article on same. Reasons include: Firstly, if they screw up, they print a top of their blogs, an obvious mea culpa, that sits in the same spot on their blogs as the earlier piece they are correcting. Secondly, they have a body of knowledge and expertise that goes deeper than generalist reporters. And thirdly, they are absolutely upfront about their biases, letting readers decide how to take their assertions. Fourthly, their link to their sources to underlay their own authority. I could go on, but you get the point.

This is why I usually refuse to do news stories generally. Because almost everytime, I've been severely burned by inaccuracies by a generalist who is lazy about the big picture, going after something sensationalist instead of what is real -- taking the time to do something well so that the real story is shown for what is interesting about it or might be a bit complicated. Blogs often have to tell and retell, before trad media gets the hint, and then all of the sudden you see the reporters telling the real story in the mainstream press, but they do it as if they existed in a vacuum, with objectivity and no bias. So I find rules journalist's live by, editorial control, etc. to be disingenuous if held up as reasons why traditional journalism is better and more trustworthy than blogs. The bottom line is you are responsible for evaluating anything you read, no matter where it gets published. Doesn't matter if it's newsprint or online.

Also, the way we tell authority across blogs is not yet a set thing, and can include being a longtime reader, a personal recommendation from someone you trust, job status of the writer, inbound links, meme pushing, top 100 lists by other calculations than inbound links, posting history and context, etc. Additionally, to say that bloggers don't have to abide by any rules is false. Say something incorrect or dishonest on the internet, and the blogosphere will go after it with a vengeance and expose it. Matt Drudge already had a bad reputation before the Kerry intern thing, and now he is so dismissed. No one respects him and a lot of people removed him from their RSS readers and blogrolls. So there are far more severe corrective penalties, and far quicker, than what exists in traditional media. Again, it's the social, interactive form of this media, between blogging and journalism, that has led to this environment.

Regarding the issue of whether bloggers have editorial oversight, a few do, so it's not absolute as to what category of writer follows traditional rules, though most bloggers don't have editors. And most of the journalists I know spend most of their time with editors pitching stories, not getting editorial oversight on a finished story. In fact, Katie Hafner, among other journalists, shared a few stories with me, as she had turned them in, that I compared to what was published, and there was very little difference. To me the real issue here is with journalists is an unwillingness to be transparent about sources (link to them!) and biases, and yet that attitude is sort of being unwound by blogging anyway, whether they like it or not.

The bottom line is people are fed up with bad journalism and so blogs are a nice complimentary addition to get additional information on a story, fact checking, and for adding more complexity to the discourse. It is because of linking, which is the basis for online conversation across blogs, and our ability to find those who links to us, that makes the blog AND journalism social media equation different than what existed before the internet, between journalism and the public. Journalism used to be a very one-way affair (despite letters to the editor which relied on a big time lag, and a different place for publishing the letters than the articles discussed in the letters -- front page verses page D9). Neither form, blogging or journalism, is a replacement for the other. In fact, they need each other and could not exist or live without each other at this point. Bloggers rely heavily on the reporting done in news stories, and Journalists often rely on stories bubbling up on the blogosphere -- for both framing and a pointer to sources and events. But far more important is the social interaction and increased quality of discourse that occurs now that the internet and the rapid interactive quality of personal publishing is possible with the social technology tool that is blogging, as it mixes with traditional media.

Many bloggers have adopted a set of attitudes that measure their worth and importance by their ratings. And it's no wonder: blogging’s A-List is determined exclusively by ratings - the number of readers of any given blog.

The hunger for ratings sometimes reminds me of Howard Beale, the character Peter Finch played in the movie “Network,” who was murdered on camera for having lousy ratings.

If this was how it worked throughout media, the National Enquirer would be more relevant than the New York Times and Fox would matter more than PBS. In both cases, what really matters is not how many people are being informed and influenced, but who is being informed and influenced.

Conferenza, an e-zine covering tech conferences recently quoted consultant Amy D. Wohl on a similar note. "I know a private blog with five members, but they're all medical researchers. Perhaps they'll discover a cure for cancer some day. Who's to say that blog isn't infinitely more valuable than one with 10,000 readers?" She has a point, even if Suicide Girls has higher ratings.

Blogging is not about attention, although many bloggers have learned that if you want attention, be controversial. If you’re not resourceful enough to stir controversy, then perhaps you can emulate today’s TV producers, and be banal. My preference is for those thoughtful writers who try to be informative, who provoke thought, who reveal fresh perspectives. I prefer in so many ways the thousand writers who reach 100 a day to some bloggers who reach one million per day.

BlogOn will examine issues like this. As a social medium, we look at not just the commercial opportunities of blogging and other social media tools, but on the greater commercial implications of these powerful interactive communications tools.

Why am I doing this, starting a blog? First, I'm a big believer in the idea that innovation is self-sustaining when it loses its predictability. I figured I'd do my part to promote self-sustenance.

Second, to change the format and fidelity with which what I say is transcribed. No more comments from the pundits "in context." Now you get them straight from me.

Third, to get unfiltered feedback from the community. If you want to reach me, I'm "jonathan.i.schwartz at sun.com". I promise to read it all, but please don't count on responses (I'm a bit deluged already).

Exactly as a business blog ought to be, conversational, revealing, personal. Way to go, Tim Bray, for leading Sun to the blog.

Though that's easy to do seeing as there is so much digital content and people use the metaphor around the content where we drown in information but we use google to search through it. But RSS and the blogosphere together as an information model for users are more about discovery of things you wouldn't know to search for unless you knew about them to begin with. So messaging from supplier to users of the traditional sort is dead, and Doc suggests we quit wishing it back. Instead, putting the information out on RSS, where users configure it via RSS subscription, through the filter of the blogosphere is the model, with pull, mixed with authenticity, and community filter (sans spin).

Dave Winer has an aside to his thoughts on advertising and RSS:

BTW, two excellent feeds for watching for products as they are being invented are Gizmodo and Engadget. For a long time Gizmodo was the only act in town, and didn't have an RSS feed for many of the reasons Jeff Jarvis lists here. Then along comes Engadget, and supplies a feed, so all of a sudden Gizmodo does too. Guess what, now they both get links from my blog and many others when they run something that fits into our respective world views. In the old days a PR person would call you up, or you'd have to drag your ass to a press conference. Today, my aggregator does the drudge work, and I get to have all the fun.

To which, Doc replies:

How about equipping market demand by using RSS to notify suppliers of a customer's transient demand? For example, I'm in the market for a minidisc transcribing machine: a cross between the Sony MZ-N707 I use to record interviews and conference sessions, and the Panasonic RR-830 pedal-operated transcribing machine I use to play the sessions back after dubbing them from digital minidisc to audio cassette (a pretty clunky "solution" to a problem that's been around for a long time). I'm in the market for lots of other stuff too. So are all of us. What can we do to communicate that demand, actively but selectively? I believe RSS is a necessary but insufficient answer to that question. And that there's money to be made in making up the difference.

But discovery is not about broadcast messaging, the old metaphor before RSS+blogosphere. Discovery on the supplier end is about finding users for conversing, finding user needs and thoughts, using this feedback well, and returning useful products and services. Discovery on the end of the user is about filtering to get to products and opportunities that better match those user needs, including a user's community who may use some product that only has value or excitement to a network of users (read: community of interest). However, RSS+blogosphere are not enough, only one step on the road to figuring this out, and the conference discussion is an attempt to iterate to the next level of what we need to move forward.