As the Presidential election approaches, the deployment of political messaging on social media platforms will draw more commentary from who else but those very parties responsible for political messaging. The solipsism of journalism is really a variety of well-deserved narcissism. The gulf between private life and journalism is rapidly shrinking, especially as social media empowers non-journalists with the power of public speech.  This phenomenon has captivated journalistic attention, because the imminent ontological threat to journalism—as a medium of political discourse, and as a material medium itself—is playing out in the most visible of arenas. Average Joe and Jane, curating their personal Twitter accounts, have become involved, however inadvertently, in the battle for the continued relevancy of conventional journalism in an election year. What else can professional journalists and Joe and Jane do but rubberneck. 

Despite the fixed interest on “Twitter politics,” I am not convinced that this fall is unlike any other. Sure, the volume of political messaging on social media platforms has clearly reached new heights. It seems impossible to log on without encountering a barrage, no, slurry, of partisan and polemical utterances. So yes, in terms of usage patterns, in terms of what exactly gets posted when, October promises a decidedly different Twitter landscape. Yet, I would like to argue, provisionally and in an extremely constrained space, that political messaging on Twitter is irrelevant to its joint temporal and historical topology. I am not discussing Facebook for reasons that will become apparent in the course of the argument.

My first proposition is that Twitter does something quite different from Facebook to the divide between private and public life. Of course, I am excluding locked Twitter accounts, which function to a great degree like Facebook statuses denuded of profiles. Ordinary Twitter accounts are great equalizers: they position Average Joe on the same stratum as celebrities, politicians, and journalists. While the currency of Twitter, followers, varies wildly based on personal popularity and exposure, “branding” so-to-speak, in theory, Twitter allows civilians equal access to public fora as their more powerful peers. Thus, again, in theory, Twitter ought to facilitate a more actualized practice of democracy, a “better” kind of political activity, wherein citizens meet and strive for glory in a commons. However—and this is entirely anecdotal—I have observed a curious equalization of messaging itself, regardless of relative follower wealth, regardless of retweets, favorites, etc. That is to say, I grant approximately equal attention to the messages of friends and celebrities alike, which is to say, none at all. Honestly, I find myself not really caring about what people say on Twitter about anything, be it news, politics, or their personal lives. My disaffectation—perhaps, disillusionment—is not a desirable state of mind. I think my detachment is intimately related to the unfulfilled promise of Twitter-ized democracy. Although quarrels, productive conversation, and full-scale rhetorical wars break out on Twitter, they never seem to move towards any discernible conclusion. Tune in to the Twitter chatters, the Twitter news as it were, any day any hour of the week, and it’s the same chatterers chattering the same news. Slight variations, yes, but mere perambulations on a theme. Turn on the Twitter tube and you’ll find impassioned discussion happening around the clock. It’s just the same talk repeating itself on infinite loop.

My second proposition is that Twitter does something quite different from Facebook to the experience of time and history. On Facebook, there is a clear delineation of temporal sequence; heck, the entire Facebook interface is organized around the “Timeline.” Beginning, middle, and end. Facebook has a narrative structure, one not so dissimilar from Jane Austen’s. Twitter, however, is divested of temporal and historical context. There are quotidian and seasonal cycles of Twitter use-patterns. In the morning, people Tweet about coffee and the hot new content hitting the aggregators. In the afternoon, people Tweet about lunch and the hot new content hitting the aggregators. In the evening, well, you get the idea. Extrapolate across the seasons and other recurring periods, like election years, and the banality “history repeats itself” seems true in a sense more than figurative: Twitter actually does repeat itself, and Twitter’s reflection and representation of history thus repeats itself.

To read Twitter is to immerse yourself in a continuous flux of information that constantly changes on a microscopic scale. People do, after all, Tweet different things. But I would suggest that in aggregate, people Tweet the same things. I think reading Twitter is like reading a series of really bad novels. You probably couldn’t even call them novels. Pulp fiction. There’s a semblance of variation, of difference, but it’s all an illusion.

During this election cycle, I think that we will discover the a-historicity of Twitter. Like a theater of the absurd, Twitter has escaped the boundary lines of historical consciousness. Twitter is a solipsistic, narcissistic dream. Political messaging on Twitter happens under the flimsiest of historical parameters. On Twitter, one election is really every election. Different names, different faces, maybe different issues?—but the political discourse stays the same. Insofar as Twitter is kind of boring, I think its long-term potential as a democratic forum is limited.

• Tags
• Twitter
• politics
• social media
• news
• journalism
• history
• theory

Read Part 7, Army of One. There’s a party on the Parse.ly homepage.

The key to content promotion is to hide all traces of marketing and advertising. The digital consumer’s nose is quite sensitive to the scent of desperation. Failing to disguise a promotion as such limits the potential reach of a content distribution channel. Desperation signals that your product isn’t cool—isn’t intrinsically good, isn’t good on its own merits. Desperation signals the necessity of a marketing campaign in the first place to paint a veneer of dazzle on an otherwise bland canvas. Although building relationships with readers is the most effective way to build a loyal audience, building relationships does not mean overpromoting and overbearing enthusiasm. Turn it down from 11. To about 7.

What are some signs that you might be desperate?

1. Unsolicited daily e-mail digests. Lately, I’ve noticed an increasing frequency of daily e-mail digests. A digital publication will, after obtaining an e-mail address from an affiliate or more illicit source, send a reader an unsolicited e-mail digest. In effect, the publication has subscribed a reader to a digest without his or her prior consent. While this kind of spam is generally legal, it is annoying. Massive exposure to content might trap some less than savvy consumers. It is likely, however, to turn-off valuable and otherwise potential subscribers.

2. Repetitive promotional outreaches within a constrained time period. Interactions between a publisher and a reader need to be transactional and reciprocal. That means one-sided interactions have a low ROI. If a publisher reaches out to readers continuously without reciprocal feedback, a structure of desire for the publisher’s product never emerges. Sufficient time must be allowed to expire so that recipients can take action on promotions or initiate reciprocal interactions.

3. Too frequent Tweeting. Clogging up the Twitter streams of your followers, again, may trap some user-types. Over the long term, though, too frequent Tweeting will limit the efficiency of your social engagement and content distribution. Use optimization models to determine the best times and frequency for distributing content. 

4. Using social media “lingo” inappropriately or unironically. In high school, there are two types of uncool kids. The first, those who naturally fail to fit in with the “cool” kids. The second, those who try too hard to fit in with the “cool” kids. It’s fairly obvious which late-adopters are failing to implement the vocabulary of social media; it’s more obvious which late-adopters don’t know how to use that vocabulary judiciously.

5. Unnecessarily conspicuous share buttons. There is an optimal size and position of “share” and “subscribe” buttons in any web site layout. Exceeding that optimal size or cluttering the page deters repeat visits and direct traffic. When readers actively notice the share button, it’s not doing its job: readers should be aware of the opportunity to share, but not overwhelmed with requests to share.

Don’t be desperate for reader love. The following advice gets bandied about too much on the Internet, but it’s true: if you build it, they will come. Sometimes, publishers with good, marketable content get unlucky. Usually though, a strong product speaks for itself.             

• Tags
• marketing
• social media
• Twitter
• audience
• analytics
• digital
• publishing
• content

The most irrelevant question to ask about a technology company is whether it’s a media company.

Is Twitter a media company?

Is Facebook a media company?

And now, is Google a media company?

The great anxiety motivating these questions is the concern that technology companies are not supplementing, but rather substituting for media companies; that Twitter, Facebook, and Google are not improving content generation and distribution, but edging out conventional content in favor of a nasty user-generated slurry.

This line of inquiry puts much needed pressure on the definition of media itself. Insofar as “media” has become an anti-democratic term—a signifier of privilege and elitism—social media platforms seem antithetical to the media ethos. Twitter and Facebook have branded themselves as open and free spaces for the exchange of social information and ideas. That’s the party line, at least. Asking whether Twitter and Facebook are media companies—a question invariably advanced by the representative of a media company—expresses a fear that social media will “democratize” old media. But—but but but—the question is also an act of aggression, a weapon to weaken the heavily qualified “democracy” of social media. By suggesting that Twitter and Facebook are media companies, old media competitors suggest that Twitter and Facebook aren’t democratic at all. The questioner imposes his own weakness on his enemy: the assumption that a media company is an instrument of exclusion. Like accusations that a media company is “liberal” or “conservative,” the accusation that a social media company is a media company implies an ulterior and malfeasant motivation. The forthcoming launch of app.net, which will remove advertisers from the social media equation, will provide a testing ground for these complex issues: because app.net will require users to pay, it occupies a more overtly anti-democratic position, but it promises to eliminate the “hidden” agenda that inform the relationships between media companies and their advertisers.

Although there are aberrant instances of democratic behavior on Twitter and Facebook, the democratic production of content happens within the confines of anti-democratic institutions. Social media platforms, particularly Twitter, are populated by elite tastemakers, influencers, and media professionals. So-called “social media rockstars,” like the corrupt capitalists of the Gilded Age, control most of the available capital, in the form of followers. The high concentration of followers around a small number of individuals means that the redistribution of user-generated content depends on a system of “gatekeepers” who monitor, arbitrate, and filter content. The “democracy” that seems to describe a utopian social media ideal would be closer to anarchy or communism, wherein the power of content production and distribution would be randomly or equally distributed across the user base. In reality, content production and distribution is controlled by a privileged class of elites. The democratic promise of social media is, I am afraid, a lie; and worse, a lie being told to the supposedly democratized masses by the very class of elites that regulates the flow of information. The new partnership of Twitter with corporations and media companies continues to shift power in favor of institutions instead of individuals. While in its earliest moments Twitter may have been close to that utopian ideal, now, it has been converted into a mirage of old media. The main distinction is that consumers are brought into closer proximity with producers. What’s the difference between a celebrity occasionally retweeting a nobody and old-skool letters to the editor? 

Therefore, asking whether Twitter and Facebook are media companies is as far from provocative as one can get.

Google, though, is another matter.

Commenters have been asking whether Google is a media company since at least 2001. Fast Company, GigaOM, Advertising Age, the New York Times, and now Forbes have gotten in on the action. The question has been revived recently because of Google’s purchases of Zagat and Frommer’s. The Forbes article, linked to above, ends with an inherently flawed variation on its title question: “How long can Google be a fair arbiter of all the world’s information when it increasingly has information of its own that it wants to promote?” Since when has Google been a “fair arbiter of all the world’s information?” Last I checked, Google employs a complex—and game-able—algorithm to surface search content. It’s not necessarily a failure on Google’s part that it is not a “fair arbiter”—such a burden would be unfair and unrealistic. What is disturbing to me, however, is that anyone has been deluded into believing that Google is such an arbiter. 

Google’s acquisition of Zagat and Frommer’s included the acquisition of their original content. Zagat’s brand is grounded in a “user-generated” ethos, whereas Frommer’s brand is slanted in a professional direction. With Zagat, Google repackaged that content into promoted search content. Google’s intent with Frommer’s remains unknown. Suffice to say that acquiring original content does not make a media company . Google is resistant to the tag, “media company,” because Google doesn’t come close to doing any of the things we think a media company ought to do.

More than Twitter or Facebook, Google might have the potential to reinvent “democratized” media. But we should stop asking whether Google’s a media company, before it’s too late. Imposing an artificial label like “media company” could tilt public opinion against Google for no good reason. Calling Google a “media company” forecloses the possibility of real democratic activity. Ironically, it is not irrelevant to ask whether Google is a media company. Nevertheless, we need to refrain from pursuing that point.

• Tags
• media
• Google
• Facebook
• Twitter
• social media
• democracy
• politics

Cable news channels were a significant destination for viewers interested in getting the latest on the shootings in Colorado on Friday, according to Nielsen ratings from that day.

—TVNEWSER^® “And Now the News…About TV News”

In the documentary Kumaré, Vikram Gandhi assumes the title “guru” and sets out to amass a following. He succeeds in convincing gullible customers that he is, in fact, the guru Kumaré, a man of wisdom, spiritual enlightenment, and serenity. Kumaré has a lot to teach us about advertising, marketing, and public relations; but if it has one “actionable” point for media professionals, it is this: gurus always sell themselves. That is, the product of any guru is first, the guru, and second, the philosophy underwriting his or her—but, let’s be honest, usually his—guru-ism.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that social media gurus claim that social media is our most important news source. Despite the relentless social media boosting that pervades conventional, old media, ironically, traditional media outlets remain an equally important source of breaking news analysis. Contrary to the high visibility of social media platforms, atavistic news sources like television continue to keep huge numbers of consumers informed. News coverage of the shootings in Aurora, Colorado demonstrates how conventional media gets underestimated. For example, cable news stations experienced an influx of viewers as news of the tragedy broke. TVNEWSER^® reports that from 6 to 9 a.m. on the Friday morning of the attack, Fox News Channel averaged 1.34 million viewers, CNN 466,000, and MSNBC 450,000, all significantly higher than normal. As TVNEWSER^® concludes, “it is safe to say that cable news was a primary news source for 10s of millions of Americans Friday.”

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• Tags
• news
• old media
• new media
• social media
• Twitter
• Reddit
• television
• cable
• guru

Dalton Caldwell thinks so. GigaOM reports that Caldwell, founder of Imeem, announced a project to turn App.net into a for-pay Twitter. The service would cost around $50, revenue shared with developers on the App.net API. That is, of course, the whole point behind the project: to build a super-open and agile API. But is $50 too much, especially when weighed against a for-free product with a built-in user base?

Caldwell has spit vitriol against Silicon Valleys “advertising-supported monoculture.” Caldwell argues that advertising-powered products, which turn users and user-generated content into the product, is bad for developers and consumers. Free products are forced to control their APIs and the user experience in order to maximize advertising value. The user-incentive behind App.net is, well, the applications that would emerge around its API. Yet, if no one opts-in and ponies up the fee—if App.net’s user base is small—it will be unable to provide value to clients. And if App.net charges a fee, it will be difficult to demonstrate an attractive opportunity-cost to potential clients. Meaning that barring a spectacular PR campaign, App.net will be impotent against the “too big to fail” logic of Twitter.

• Tags
• Twitter
• social media
• App.net
• applications
• API
• development
• freemium
• startups
• innovation
• technology

Read Part 3: The Weakest Link.

Social media, like Twitter and Facebook, is the primary instrument for building an audience. But if social networks are tools, they are not tactics; they are a way to do something, not the something something itself. Even those publications whose face-value social media performance is strong—who enjoy high share rates, high numbers of followers, and engage well with fans—may not be maximizing their social media efficiency or translating social media engagement into a loyal readership. A majority of the traffic to successful digital publications is direct, meaning that it’s the consequence of users landing on the main page or navigating with internal links throughout the site. Building an audience is really about building direct traffic, which is really about building a loyal readership, which is really about routing new users to a site and impressing them with the available or visible content. Social media is a useful tool for building an audience because it brings new users to a site, but it’s not a tactic for building an audience. It is not enough to spam Twitter and Facebook with your links or even engage on a superficial level with readers. Instead, social media should be employed as part of segmented tactical programs. One example of such a program, “contact buzz,” is a creative way of rethinking “bad” social media tactics, like link spamming.

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• Tags
• Dash
• analytics
• Parsely
• building an audience
• buzz
• trending
• topics
• twitter
• facebook
• social media
• direct traffic
• digital
• publications
• technology

Since Twitter shut down its direct-connect to LinkedIn, tech pundits have been buzzing about whether Twitter has become too “closed.” In his editorial, “Twitter faces the same dilemma as the New York Times,” Mathew Ingram argues that Twitter has chosen “advertising over being a platform”—that is, Twitter has jettisoned a truly open API, upon which developers could freely experiment, and focused on content curation and advertising revenue. Yet, it seems likely that Twitter will still offer some form of API, with a large caveat: a licensing fee or intrusive advertising. So Ingram asks, “is it possible for a media entity to simultaneously be an open platform and a destination?” I don’t really see Twitter’s two core functions—API and content host—as mutually exclusive. In fact, Twitter has an opportunity to develop a strategy for negotiating those potentially conflicting goals. As long as Twitter avoids spiraling towards more conventional content generation platforms and keeps users engaged in content curation activities, there’s no reason to believe it will not be able to monetize both its API and its user-facing content stream.

• Tags
• Twitter
• social media
• api
• content
• curation
• LinkedIn
• open
• network
• data

“People were sympathizing with a Python script,” Greg Marra, a Google+ product manager, told Wired. Marra built a Twitter bot, @Trackgirl, designed to emulate the Twitter accounts of distance-runners. @Trackgirl’s tweets about running culture were authentic enough to convince users that she was a real girl. When @Trackgirl tweeted about an injured ankle, users responded sympathetically.

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• Tags
• robots
• empathy
• technology
• twitter
• sympathy
• social media
• innovation
• coding
• computer science
• artificial intelligence

On Wednesday, social media startup Moped announced $1 million in seed funding, GigaOM reports. Moped’s product is a repackaged version of Twitter direct messages. Direct messaging on Moped is, unlike Twitter, private. Users who are not mutual followers can message each other, too. GigaOM points out that Moped faces a host of already established rivals, ranging from Twitter to SMS to IRC to email to…well, you get the point. In fact, Moped seems closest to a stripped down email platform with Twitter syntax. This style of innovation is evolution, not genesis: the odds are much higher that Twitter or a rival will buy Moped than Moped becoming a threat to its rivals. What happens, however, when evolution assumes the form of recycling?

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• Tags
• startups
• innovation
• Twitter
• social media
• myth
• ouroboros
• technology
• communication
• Moped

In this series, we’ll take a look at how you can increase traffic to your website and improve engagement with readers. In particular, Dash is a great way to build an audience for your content. Real time data and simple, information rich graphics make it easy to identify opportunities and take action. Check back every week for more in-depth tips on building an audience:

Last week, we talked about building an audience by trailblazing new Twitter networks. On Dash, it’s easy to see which Twitter users are interacting with your content. We’re able to extract that information because Twitter is an “open” network. Unfortunately, Facebook is not. Facebook is like a burger shop—no shirt, no shoes, no service—except that every customer (developer) is rolling shirt- and shoe-less. Although we can collect information about aggregate Facebook activity, we can’t parse that data out to reveal which specific Facebook users are interacting with your content how. Our CEO Sachin Kamdar wrote a great piece for GigaOM on “the shares problem” and how to approach it. As a content creator, an editor, or a publisher, you are a general staring into dark and uncharted territory: Facebook’s fog of war. What we can show, however, is the total click-through traffic from Facebook for any given author, post, section, etc. on your site.

Here are two ways you can see through the Facebook fog of war:


1. Make comparisons: Understanding your baseline Facebook activity, or what an average day looks like, can help you identify areas of weakness or strength. If your site usually attracts 10% traffic from social sources, and 60% of that traffic is from Facebook, but one of your articles is not performing well on Facebook, you can promote that article more or evaluate its share-ability. Or if one author is performing better than others on Facebook, you could hold a meeting to workshop Facebook networking. The possibilities are endless. Say articles from your news section are performing better on Facebook than opinion articles—maybe the presence or absence of a compelling thumbnail image is affecting share rate. Machined analytics aren’t enough: human intelligence is the key to making accurate and insightful comparisons of Facebook activity between authors or sections.

2. Link longevity: Besides the sheer number of Facebook shares, it’s valuable to know the duration that a link is driving traffic and whether your old content is resurfacing on Facebook. On Dash, you can view selected time periods of traffic for any referrer For example, you might see an article, originally published a week ago, ranked third in total Facebook referrals for the current day. Those observations can help you anticipate future content performance and take action on unexpectedly surging posts.

Instead of wishing and hoping that Facebook would cut the no shoes policy, we like to focus on what we can do with the data we have. With proper reservations and an eye for detail, we can do a lot.

• Tags
• social media
• Facebook
• twitter
• analytics
• Dash
• digital
• publishing
• shares
• technology