Bloggers as Media

Have you ever noticed that a lot of blogs want to be seen as being the same as the media? And media companies are responding by /a>. But why is emulating the media so exciting? After all, the same media is so big, /a> & /a> that it is /a>. How is it possible that a humor blog network built on open source software would ever need to /a>?

The problem is that it is hard to /a>. You eventually become that you claimed to hate. If you are good at public relations you can /a> /a> to build exposure, but ultimately once a site becomes large there is no incentive for creating signal. Rather the game becomes generating as much exposure as you can /a>. Content can be /a> to stand out, but at the core it is basically the same.

Bloggers can state that /a>, but action speaks louder than words. We can say we don’t need /a> (and /a>), but rather /a>. The problem is there is no incentive on the publisher front. Check out how outraged TechCrunch comment freetards were at the idea of /a>.

/a> to /a> instead they /a> by having to wade through more /a>, /a> & repetition.

Here are /a> /a> from TechCrunch about Yahoo!. Both published on the same day. Both saying the same thing. There isn’t much difference between them than what a good markov generator could do.

And, of course, there are the /a> /a> /a>. Junk.

A Comfortable Spin

What’s worse is that many sites exist simply to /a> rather than a pragmatic view of the world:

The million channel words brings addressability. There is no mass any more. You can’t reach everyone. Mad Men is a hit and yet it has only been seen by 2% of the people in the USA.

The mcw bring silos, angry tribes and insularity. Fox News makes a fortune by pitting people against one another. Talkingpointsmemo is custom tailored for people who are sure that the other side is wrong. You can spend your entire day consuming media and never encounter a thought you don’t agree with, don’t like or don’t want to see.

The /a> from such media & /a> leads people to worry about inconsequential crap like their political ideology, where they can /a>. It makes them notice the trivial differences while remaining blinds to important things, like /a> that is supported and encouraged by both leading political parties. Arguing inconsequential details /a> because the blame has to be sent to “them” rather than where is squarely belongs.

Media as a Conduit For Scams & Misinformation

Do you find it perplexing that the same media (which claims to be legitimate) has no problems /a>? Isn’t it bizarre that the same media that claims to protect citizens from the evils of the marketplace tries to blend the ads for such scams in with their navigation to sell their readers down the river? Is this what you would expect of Newsweek?

Is that anything to aspire to?

Jokingly Geordie suggested how annoying he found the gallery sections on media sites with videos and pictures that seem like they are fresh off the Jerry Springer show. “WATCH: Teen beats ferret to death and eats it!” In the short run /a> through tricking people, but the end result is distrust & people become less receptive.

That same media /a>:

The problem is lack of sufficiently broad exposure to the facts here in the US. We don’t have a fourth estate, a national media in the role of providing checks and balances to government and business excesses. Instead we have media that sells product. In the late 1990s it sold tech stocks, in the early 2000s the Iraq War, from 2002 until 2007 it sold houses, and in the future it will sell whatever measures are a “necessary” price for social stability, national security, or whatever phrases are used, because things are going to get dicey once this 40 year old Rube Goldberg monetary and trade contraption comes apart when it’s hit with a Peak Cheap Oil sledgehammer in the middle of the Jon Stewart show. I mean, how healthy is the American fourth estate when all of the serious journalism here is done by comedians?

Governments often do /a> – which is /a>. When the truth gets exposed people go to jail. Unfortunately, /a>.

Social Media is Different*

Isn’t it weird that the mark of a successful blog is that it starts to look and feel and act like bloated media organizations? Is social media any better? Or is social media mostly a bunch of lemmings /a>?

Just because there is lots of information doesn’t make all of it valuable. In fact, some of it has /a>. Who are the people who login to Facebook so they can vote on Facebook about how Facebook is a waste of time & they don’t use it?

As /a> the hype cycle /a> for the next.

Hyping a Social Network

The whole wave of online communication and publishing is that a new service promotes itself as /a>. Most of it is simply a repeat of the recent past. Bookmarks were popular. Then they were not. Then bookmarks were popular. /a>. /a>.

/a> gives new companies a niche or angle to get press coverage from. People ask if it is the next Google, or more! The service then go under-monetized for a couple years to feed growth and scale. The whole time the site is not monetized stories are seeded in the media about how media format x /a> even if /a>.

Cashing Out

But ultimately what happens is the networks /a> and try to confuse users. /a> is the name of the game as /a> to /a>.

Facebook /a> via sponsored stories, doing something akin to /a> without anyone caring. Even /a>, they want you to trust them with /a> (/a>) and turning your messages into an ad unit.

If the NFL /a> (without paying you or offering you free tickets) then they are simply using you as free content /a>. It is not like they are /a>.

What Privacy?

How is it possible that we are told that /a> but privacy allegedly does not? Most such stores of data are built through an invasion of privacy.

/a> has /a>. What happens /a> & you start recommending some uncomfortable stuff? What happens when a stalker catches you on the way home based on one of your messages? How many such experiences will be viewed as a series of isolated events before people figure it out? Once these ads lose their novelty will there still be real businesses behind them? Or /a> the wave of the future even as people realize /a> being /a>?

LinkedIn, the professional version of Facebook, /a>. And when they buy tools they can sell as services they often /a> to make the site more sticky and sell more ads.

Is Twitter any better? In some regards sure, but they are /a> and are pushing followers and retweets as ad units. /a>. /a>, but ultimately they will be measured by the people selling the ads. This ends up being a game of fakemytraffic.com/fakemyvalue.com…where networks find something that sounds appealing at first blush and then /a>.

Finding a Social Signal Amongst Sponsored Stories

The point I am trying to make is that these companies are blending their ad units and editorial so greatly that most people can’t tell them apart. If that sounds familiar, that is /a>. The key to making it work is perceived relevancy. That is easy to do when you have a large ad auction and users type their intent into a search box, but is much harder to do when people are browsing pictures of cats.

Anyone who thinks that social is a clean search signal is forgetting that people vote most for stuff that his humorous & easy to share. And people share things that they saw others shared because they felt they had to. The echo chamber effect doesn’t encourage critical thought. It is mostly a bunch of +1.

The following video is sad & funny. It has been viewed widely, but it does nothing to fix a broken education system.

And there are entire categories that will never be featured honestly on social media. Sure the idea of /a> will get lots of exposure, but is anyone ever going to honestly Tweet about their favorite solutions to their genital warts problem? Is there enough context to matter? Worse yet, all these networks are turning their relevancy signals into ad units, so if a search engine was to count them heavily all the search engine would be doing is subsidizing the third party ad network. And the scammers who are pushing reverse billing fraud products on the news sites will do as much damage as they can get away with on the social sites.

Google’s Amit Singhal /a>:

If there’s a broad call at the company to integrate social networking features, Singhal hasn’t quite heard it. He seems skeptical about whether social data can make search results significantly more relevant. If he’s searching for a new kind of dishwasher, he argues, his friend’s recommendations are interesting, but the cumulative opinion of experts manifested in search results is much more valuable. He notes that Google already integrates content from Twitter and says social networking data is easily manipulated. Can social context make search more relevant? “Maybe, maybe not. Social is just one signal. It’s a tiny signal,” he says.

If Google can’t find much signal there then good luck to /a> to trade the (increasingly corrupted) stock market!

Why People Like Social Media

I think social media gives people the illusion of success through proximity. Thus people are impressed to rub shoulders with successful people, even if they are douchebags and liars to boot. There is the unsaid message that “you too can be a billionaire” that a lot of entrepreneurs and start up folks want to believe in that drives the growth of Quora. But the reality is that /a>, even if /a>.

Someone wants to eat my dog. Other than breathing, writing English(ish), and having a Twitter account, I probably do not have anything in common with that person. And yet there is no tool to sort that out.

That is the big problem with most social media tools: the monolithic nature.

And if you look at /a> (/a>) are doing, it is pretty clear that /a>. If they count that, then search engines may as well just use ad budget as the primary signal of relevancy at that point.

Why Smaller Communities With Thrive

I am not sure where I read this quote from, but I think it went something like this “we are most similar where we are most vulgar and most unique in the ways we are sophisticated.” That is precisely why a lot of the broader networks will repeatedly fail /a>. It is why there is so much value in being a fast follower.

Given /a> and /a> people (or at least the smart ones who are well experienced in the game of life & /a>) eventually /a>.

Ultimately Social Media Changes Nothing

Human nature is both /a> & /a>. How you frame a question informs /a>. We live in a corporate world where /a> & /a>.

Messaging and imagery allow /a>. The abuse of language is so thorough that even the words “shared planet” need a TM next to them.

What is Driving the “Social Revolution”?

A week ago /a>:

The inflation and bubbles in the developing world are not yet destabilizing because the dollar is weak and the hot money supports their currency values. Historically, inflation becomes a crisis in the developing world when the dollar turns around and appreciates. However, it is possible for inflation to create a crisis without a currency crisis. It erodes the purchasing power of the people at the bottom. Social unrest can lead to political crisis

That is, of course, no longer true. What was /a> has spread to Egypt. /a> are now blowing up other countries with /a>:

The currency pegs mean that most of the inflationary pressure you’re creating doesn’t hit your nation, it’s exported to others. That exactly how you like it, because you can claim “inflation expectations are well-anchored.” Perhaps they are in your nation, but in other places they’re extremely unanchored and are not only expectations, they’re realized facts as the basic cost of life spirals up out of control.

This, in turn, provokes food riots in these less-well-endowed nations that you managed to dupe into participating in your outrageous scheme. After all, there’s only one thing worse than a hungry man. That’s a man who used to be well-fed and now he’s both hungry and ****ed, along with being unemployed.

When his belly growls loudly enough, he riots. And so do his similarly-situated neighbors.

The social revolution we are seeing now is not /a>. When /a> (/a>) /a> and /a> don’t really matter. What you are seeing is not /a>, but rather smart marketers who are trying to /a> in media coverage of important events. You don’t get /a> the size of the following when the internet is unplugged if Twitter is the cause.

Rather such mobs are caused because the lack of media doing its job to enforce a sense of outrage over the injustices caused upon societies world over by banking criminals. If there was any sense of justice the large banks that caused this mess would have been bankrupted. But instead we base economic strategy on the theoretical economy rather than its impact on the real world.

People are just an externality for bankers to exploit.

Meanwhile, those who let /a> /a> /a> the world over think Twitter makes a difference. /a>.

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