by Cathy Brooks (source PR 2.0)

Source: Shutterstock

I admit it. I’m old fashioned. That may seem a silly statement coming from someone as deeply steeped in the digital realm as I, but when it comes to certain things this Silicon Valley geek likes to roll old school. I believe in charcoal barbecues. I believe in hand-writing thank you notes. I believe that white shoes have no business being worn after Labor Day. Most of all though, and to the great amusement of many I know, I believe in daily newspapers.

So when someone started to steal my New York Times off the front step of my building, I did what any self-respecting social media person would do. I launched an aggressive effort to catch the SOB, and began to chronicle my efforts in streaming video.

After a couple of weeks of on and off success in at least getting my paper but failing to snare the culprit I escalated my efforts, as I explain in this video:

Day after day I arose far earlier than my non-morning person self cared to, and I waited. Through the process I got to know many neighbors – those in my building as well as various and sundry folks whose morning schedules took them past my stakeout perch. I realized that every morning more than a half dozen newspapers landed on the step of my building alone. I saw similar stacks of newsprint on other stoops. I saw myriad people walking dogs and striding purposefully towards bus stops – many of them also with broadsheets in hand.

When it came to that daily paper fix, clearly I wasn’t alone.

Then there were my online comrades. Besides the amusement several people seemed to get from my daily commentary, I found a growing chorus of support from folks on Twitter and Facebook. People shared my self-righteous indignation at the theft. That surprised me less than the passionate support that many shared for getting that daily slab of printed paper to complement their morning coffee. Most people felt I should just set up a streaming web cam and save myself the burden of getting up so darn early. Others suggested setting a booby trap for the culprit. Still others offered to come and sit in shifts to help me snare the thief. Then came a note from Chris O’Brien, a friend and long-time Journalist who writes for the San Jose Mercury News. His suggestion? My videos would make a great ad campaign for the newspaper industry.

Some might say that an ad campaign for the newspaper industry would be a waste of time. After all, why waste effort for an industry that, according to statistics, is on the decline? Seeing Chris’ name in my comment stream, however, reminded me that in addition to his being a dyed-in-the-wool member of the Fourth Estate, he had an up-close-and-personal perspective that maybe, just maybe things weren’t so bleak after all.

After a bit of calendar choreography, Chris and I managed to settle in for a phone chat one afternoon last week. Over the course of about a half hour, we wended our way through a discussion from which I gleaned several key points:

1) Newsprint may be black and white but the media business isn’t – While people tend to lean towards a twofold viewpoint (the world was this way, now it’s that way; people used to do things this way, now people do things another way), the truth is that the advent of new forms of media have yet to wholly kill previous forms. Television didn’t kill radio. The VCR didn’t kill the movies. Okay so maybe the Internet struck a near fatal blow to the music industry, but even in that case, things continue to evolve. In Chris’ words, “People want to get into a binary debate that we used to just all want (the newspaper) because we had no choice and now people want the raw feed to mix up their own news. From where I sit what’s really happening is that people have splintered in a lot of different directions. You still have people who value the gatekeeper/passive experience at one end and then you have (people on the other end) who just want the raw feed of all data washing over them, but mostly people exist on the span in between.”

2) Never underestimate the power of human nature - The people who get newspapers in print tend to be committed to getting the product in that form and whether it’s habit or not, they tend to stick with getting that paper delivered to their doorstep. O’Brien related that when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased publishing its print edition and went web only, thanks to a joint operating agreement all P-I subscribers were switched automatically to the only remaining Seattle daily – The Seattle Times. People had the option to cancel, but something interesting happened. They didn’t. Not only did they retain their existing subscriptions, but when those began to run out, almost everyone renewed. O’Brien is not surprised by this and spoke of the digitally saturated people with whom he speaks every day – the venture capitalists and tech company executives whose lives are shackled to Blackberries and RSS feeds. “These are people who use technology for everything in their lives and they still get the paper in print. They still have it delivered to their doorstep.”

3) In today’s rapidly moving world, tactile yet passive experiences have merit - One of my favorite things about that morning paper is, quite simply, turning the pages. Humans are, after all, kinesthetic creatures, so the hands-on experience of a paper has some value. O’Brien agrees with that, and thinks that there’s something even more simple. Sometimes people just want a “psychologically different experience … a purely passive experience.” He went on to explain that oftentimes people don’t want “something with buttons or to click around. Even with a Kindle, there are buttons to push and that’s not appealing to them. They just want something that’s there. Something they don’t have to think about.” There are some who disagree with that perspective, but I’m not one of them.

What does all of this mean? From where I sit, it’s pretty clear newspapers aren’t going away. While some may enjoy the macabre view of a deathwatch, the truth is that this is all about evolution; and as these things go, it’s not about today – it’s about what and who is coming across the horizon.

For starters, there are myriad efforts to revitalize and retool newsrooms and O’Brien has done more than dabble on this front. Awarded a grant from the Knight Foundation, O’Brien tackled the task of building a next generation newsroom for Duke University. His “Next Newsroom” project, included the development of a site on which to archive his research and create a conversation around the task of designing this newsroom of the future. Though the official part of the grant ended in 2008, the Ning network he created lives on – and is thriving. In addition, in spite of the bleak industry outlook, the numbers for Journalism programs across the US proffer a glimmer of hope – they’re on the rise.

Are these monumental steps that will swoop in and save the anemic newspaper industry? No. They do, however, represent positive movement in a necessary evolution – an evolution that will no doubt lead to a new kind of newspaper for a new kind of audience.

As for me and my newspaper thief – the problem has been resolved. No, I haven’t found the culprit (though I did narrow down the potential suspects to one of eight residents in my building). Instead, my newspaper delivery man has adapted. Rather than whizzing by my house and winging the paper out of the open window of his car, this fine fellow stops his car, and physically hides the paper for me every morning.

Besides the guarantee that this great service will keep me as a subscriber, you can be sure I’ll be giving him a nice present for the holidays.

—

Please also read, “Can the statusphere save journalists?”

On Aug 12, Pear Analytics released a white paper discussing exactly what people are tweeting about.  For two weeks they randomly sampled the public timeline in 30 minute increments between the hours of 11 am and 5 pm CST. They categorized the tweets into six categories:

• News: What is happening in the world news, not TechCruch/Mashable type of news
• Spam: We all know what this one is.
• Self-Promotion: Corporate posts, latest blog posts – you get the idea
• Pointless Babble: Apparently these are the “I am eating a sandwich” or “I am going to the mall” type of tweets
• Conversational: @reply posts or questions and polls
• Pass Along Value: Retweets

Because I usually get a lot out of my tweets (sharing knowledge, conversation), I was surprised to see that Pointless Babble came in with 40.55% of the captured tweets, but Conversational came in close at 37.55%, and Pass-Along Value was third at 8.7% of the tweets captured. Also surprising was that Self-Promotion came in at 5.85%, Spam at 3.75% and News at 3.6%.

Today I tweeted out a link to a NY Times article on online learning stats. Where do “Sharing” tweets come in, where people are exchanging knowledge? Is that News?

The results went a little further, noting that 11:30 am and Mondays have a large retweet value. Maybe people are sharing all sorts of things they are finding in the news as they return to their desk and sharing them on Twitter, inspiring retweets? Conversational tweets tend to happen between 2 and 4 pm. This is about when I get antsy and want to focus on something else.  However, keep in mind that these tweets were all randomly sampled from the public timeline and Pear Analytics functions on CST. 11:30 am for them is different in for a lot of the rest of us.

In their white paper, Pear Analytics drew the conclusion that Conversational and Babble were so close that had they conducted a longer study, the two categories would constantly be trading out for first place. My money is on Conversational.

Oh, and guess where I found out about this study? Someone tweeted it.

__

Cheers!

Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

by Brian Solis

Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop media empire continues to rapidly expand. If you don’t already know about it, Alltop is essentially a curated online magazine rack featuring thousands of sources, organized by industry or topic, to provide “aggregation without aggravation.”

Kawasaki and team recently introduced My.Alltop, which enables viewers to build a custom news page sourced from the qualified pundits and sources on any given topic that interests you. It’s reminiscent  of NetVibes, but features only crowdsourced voices as a way of filtering out the noise and increasing the signal.

Here’s mine: My.Alltop.com/BrianSolis

My.Alltop dashboard features some of my favorite thought leaders in tech, new journalism, sociology, Web 2, and social media, including (in no particular order):

Guy Kawasaki, Walt Mossberg, Kara Swisher, Robert Scoble, Seth Godin, Tara Hunt, Doc Searls, David Armano, Fred Wilson, MetaFilter: Sociology, Chris Brogan, Jason Calacanis, Chris Anderson, Everyday Sociology, Hugh MacLeod, MindBlink, Shel Holtz, Mind Hacks, Richard Edelman, Peter Shankman, Enthnography, Dave Fleet, Brand Autopsy, Hubspot, Publishing 2.0, Adrants, Peter Kim, Todd Defren, B.L. Ochman, Psyblog, Media/Anthropology, Jeff Jarvis.

I highly recommend Alltop especially if you’re researching or seeking qualified authorities on the subjects that will help you excel. My.Alltop is my new homebase for tapping into the intellectual capital that feeds wisdom and also sparks new ideas each and every day – all from one place.

Sign up and discover the information that motivates, educates, entertains, and inspires you.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, or Facebook

by Brian Solis

Gabe Rivera continues to humanize TechMeme, his news sourcing and aggregation dashboard with the inclusion of Twitter tips. Previously, he announced the hiring of Megan McCarthy as editor to bring a human touch to the news rotation.

Gabe commented, “Often there are Techmeme readers aware of great stories that have fallen through the cracks, or are taking too long to appear on Techmeme. So I’ve long wanted to enable news tips, but the question remains: how best to receive them? Though forms or a special email address might work, today we begin by receiving tips over Twitter”

To send a tip, include “Tip @Techmeme” in the tweet and include a URL and part of the headline.

Tips will be processed automatically and manually. If you were the first person to tip Techmeme about a story url, your Twitter ID will be credited on the homepage of Techmeme – if the story is posted. The credit will appear beneath the posted headline, after “Discussion” links.

See this example from@noahkagan:

TWEET

TECHMEME

So, I’ll give it a try in support of some recent news…Mukund Mohan and I just launched BuzzGain in Public Beta…

TWEET

RETWEETS

UPDATE:

It works!

UPDATE: “Send this to Techmeme” button now available for blogs

Also, if you need a guide to URL shorterners and the differences and value propositions for each, read about it on PR 2.0.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

by Brian Solis, originally posted in PR 2.0

Credit

As a follow up to my post, Extra Extra, Read All About It! Newspapers Respond to the Social Web,” new research emerges that documents the looming exit of print newspapers as a primary source of national and international news.

According to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, a new survey indicates that 40% of respondents claim the Internet as their primary source for national and international news, versus 24% in 2007. In comparison, 35%, up 1% from 2007, rely on newspapers and 70% count on television as their main source for news, down from 74% in 2007.

Perhaps the harbinger of things to come is embodied in the response from Americans under the age of 30. A staggering 59% indicated that they get most of their news from the Internet, up from 34% in 2007. In the group, television tied with the Internet at 59%, but for broadcast TV, it’s a steep decline from 68% in 2007. As Dan Farber of CNET points out, these figures add up to more 100 percent because people have the ability to offer multiple answers.

Clearly, printed newspapers as well as television are under tremendous pressure to reinvent themselves in the social economy. It’s not just about the socialized mechanisms and channels to source and broadcast news however, a successful metamorphosis requires the creation of an active and enlivened community supported by a profitable business model.

As I’ve stated previously, through social networks, blogs, and micro communities, consumers have access to information literally as it happens. Their peers become sources for news and information, reinforced by social frequency and reverberation. Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, and other networks ARE emerging as trusted and oft referenced newsfeeds. And, they’re fueled by immediacy, brevity, and connectedness.

You can download the study as a PDF here.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

by Brian Solis

Gabe Rivera announced that TechMeme will complement its advanced news aggregation algorithms with a human touch. Last month, Megan McCarthy, formerly of ValleyWag and Wired, joined the team to fill the “news maestro” role.

Credit: Brian Solis on flickr

The benefit?

The news will just get faster and more interesting. Obsolete stories will be eliminated sooner while breaking stories will be expedited. Related grouping will improve. Plus, I’m a big fan of Megan’s work, so I’m looking forward to the new and improved TechMeme.

According to Rivera’s post, “I should note that the experience of introducing direct editing has been a revelation even for us, despite the fact that we planned it. Interacting directly with an automated news engine makes it clear that the human+algorithm combo can curate news far more effectively that the individual human or algorithmic parts. It really feels like the age of the news cyborg has arrived. Our goal is apply this new capability to producing the clearest and most useful tech news overview available”

Please send complaints or news suggestions to this new email address:editorial@techmeme.com

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

Subscribe to the bub.blicio.us RSS Feed.