“Never disagree when you can crawl instead?” As a tsunami of live-tweets by various attendees of last week’s Frontline Club On the Media event “Access Denied” filled – (some might say clogged) the Twitter feed, a lively discussion developed in tandem – and more or less simultaneously – on the propriety, usefulness and sheer etiquette of this type of hashtag frenzy.
Brian Condon, who both live-blogged and participated in the debate on the night, has already discussed the practical issues of live coverage on this blog.
Here, in a characteristically forthright post, Steve Jackson – whom many readers will know as @ourman on Twitter – argues that the proliferation of social media tools and the exponential rise of those of us using them has decimated genuine “news” values, encouraged a culture of back-slapping sycophancy and self-promotion and comprehensively undermined the value of the Social Media “Conversation”.
Spend any time at all following any number of journalists on Twitter and you’ll never be too far away from PR-bashing.
The essential stereotype is normally “how did they think this was news?” or “why did they send this to me?”
In short, the accusations are of no news sense and a scattergun approach.
It’s interesting then that when its hacks running the show, and no one to edit, a different tact is taken when social media is involved.
Suddenly there is no concept of news values. Only just how many tools can we use to spread the thin story just about as thinly as possible? There is never any thought of “what is this worth?” or “is this a story?”
Just keep on spreading.
I say this following my disagreement to a bout of sustained tweeting surrounding the Frontline Club. You can read more here. But essentially, such was the glee of the assorted Media Twitterati that the usual social media niceties were dispensed with.
When I grumped about a bunged up feed, the response, though apologetic, was – “but people want to hear this stuff”. I stood accused of standing in the way of those foreign correspondents who really wanted to follow the proceedings but their developing world bandwidth wouldn’t allow them to live stream it.
Which might have been a fair argument, except I’m just back from a year in Cameroon and not only would streaming be out – spending 15 minutes waiting for Twitter to pop up would have left me furious if all I could read were the out of context burblings from the Frontline Club.
I can imagine what those foreign correspondents wanted was the camaraderie. The facts and opinions were of little interest – which was lucky because there were precious few that made it to the live tweet hubbub.
As if 140 characters could ever tell you anything about an event beyond the out of context and the inane.
Since then nearly all the “conversation” has been about just how we report the Frontline meetings. Should we use Audio Boo? What about live blogging? Is live tweeting so bad? How can we gather the information and put it in one place?
And you think…woooaaaah. What was actually said? Does anyone really care?
The star turn was the BBC’s Richard Sambrook. A deity in the world of social media.
His take on it all:
“I felt it was a little unfocused ranging across issues like the use of Twitter, Journalists safety, changes in the news industry, government relations and more. But good informed discussion with plenty of input from the audience.”
Notice the order. Twitter comes first. Also the phrase “unfocussed”.
It’s then followed, on his blog, by links to the movie of the event, the live blog and the AudioBoo. It stopped just short of the t-shirt.
Literally as I write this I notice a new update – Kate Day has blogged it for the Telegraph and offers rare intelligent insight.
Here’s some more input – and hang on! We have some rare dissenters:
Now wondering if Wells and @sambrook will be going home w piles after all the requisite, post-presentation arse-licking at #frontline.
And how about this:
read first “liveblog” and find #frontline was not a media black-hole more like @sambrook’s unofficial fan club 
– this world of soundbites
I see their point. Put it all together and you have the classic web 2.0 event:
i. Show no news values as to the coverage your event is worth.
ii. Upload it to every single social media tool at your disposal.
iii. Remember what is said is of less importance than the message delivery system.
iv. Never disagree when you can crawl instead.
I have written about this before. The dynamic of Twitter behaves in a way that promotes agreement. If you want retweets and followers then you have to rack up some brownie points.
A man like Richard Sambrook has an influential blog, 1,500 very influential Twitter followers and, of course, a top job. In short, he has a number of platforms in which to namecheck you – even better he could offer you some work. So you’re not about to disagree and this is the problem. Discussions stop being discussions and just become huge agree-fests. The agreements are then broadcast to a wider audience and everybody again agrees. Then they are retweeted…making sure to add @sambook so that he gets to note their compliance. The culture encourages live tweeters. Complain and they’ll tell you…”but everyone likes my live tweets.”
Everyone says they like EVERYTHING on Twitter. Very few people are about to tell an influential journo to please stop because…hey, they want the retweets. Social media types often fall back on the importance of The Conversation. But this is no conversation. At best it’s simply agreement and people falling in line. At worst is a suspension of news values together with icky self-promotion and a child’s glee at new toys.
It is simply networking in its very oldest sense. It’s not even ultimately about spreading your ideas (no one has ideas anymore) it’s about fawning for your own personal advancement. Too often, it’s not about advancing journalism at all. Or about promoting transparency or democracy – it’s about how can I get closer to these people with power?
There remain the bad guys for the Media Twitteratti and we can all agree to disagree with them (heck, they aren’t even on Twitter). Stick in the mud traditional media (boooo), Rupert Murdoch (boooo) and yet the MT themselves don’t have any answers. Perhaps it’s because the conversation is everything and everywhere that it continues to go nowhere.
The aim is: just keep talking and agreeing and hopefully while we’re doing this someone else will actually come up with some concrete ideas and possibly even implement them.
Surely it’s about time we were beyond this? It’s about time we stopped saying how cool all this web 2.0 stuff is and stopped writing so exhaustively about it. By all means use the tools but don’t make the tools the message.
As I am fond of saying…when the printing press was invented people didn’t use it to write a stack of books about…the printing press.We need to look at The Conversation and how we deliver it and ask ourselves…is anyone really saying anything?
Fewer and fewer people are blogging and more are linking and retweeting instead.
Even those who actually pen their own words are reduced to rejumbling the words: sharing, conversation, citizen journalists, advertising, business model and seeing what comes out.
I think Murdoch is wrong but thank Christ he’s not just another person retweeting other people’s ideas.
Can we refocus, rediscover our news values and move on?
The Conversation is getting boring.
Disagree,if it wasn’t for live tweets coming out of these meetups then people wouldn’t know what was going on. Not everyone has the time or money to attend conferences, and twitter back channels are brilliant. Tweeters know how to filter for content, and don’t follow people who clog up the works by arselicking as you like to call it. Just because some do please don’t tar us all with the same brush. Twitter is a conversation, and it isn’t boring. A lot of conversations do go somewhere, but some don’t. Just like in real life? Methinks you protest too much. But there again, that idea is my own opinion, and you may think its boring. In that case don’t follow me.
Posted by cyberdoyle on September 14th, 2009.
Thanks as ever for input Chris. Personally, though, Steve has indeed got me thinking a little harder about tweeting inanely about a few pet topics.
Trouble is that, I suspect, like many others, I have many sub-sets of Twitter mates: the translators, the runners, the journos, the dog lovers..
(I also have rugby and cricket gangs and am an honorary & honoured member of the Brummie tweet collective!)
Ergo, not everything I tweet will interest everyone who follows me – eg I have mates in Holland & Portugal/Brazil & so – shock horror – occasionally tweet in the language in question (matter of courtesy and not just showing off…)
IMHO the back channel is both a blessing & a curse – yes, self-censoring, sometimes cruel but often illuminating.
Maybe you should write a guest post?!
Posted by Dominique Jackson on September 14th, 2009.
Just wanted to put a couple of things straight…in the tweeting of this I was billed as taking on @sambrook and @brian_condon. Not true.
I am not sure how I could be perceived as taking on @sambrook as if I’d blame him for bring crawled to.
Again as to @brian_condon again..no, no disrespect there. No taking on. This is not a personal attack on ANYBODY. Just reflection on a culture that is growing while at the same time producing fewer fewer ideas and genuine debate.
Posted by Steve Jackson on September 14th, 2009.
thanks Dee, but don’t profess to be an author, just like commenting on other people’s profound works…
…the beauty of blogs as opposed to twitter is there is room for explanations, and sometimes one feels compelled to agree, or disagree. That is the reason for blogging as opposed to tweeting. A place for everything. People can’t write blogs when attending a conference, but can tweet interesting points,which later serve as the basis for a longer commentary, via a blog or website. Interesting to see the two sides of the story in the posts on this blog. Brian supporting and Steve opposing back channels. Yep, very interesting. Of course the majority don’t even discuss it, they just use the tools of their choice and don’t even think about it. I stick by my original idea, Steve hasn’t figured out how to make the tool work for him, whereas Brian has.
Like you I also have ended up following people from all different walks of life and interests. I gain and lose followers every day. The ones who stick with me know that when I am following a conf they will get lots of tweets on that subject, and if it isn’t of interest to them they can unfollow for the day or just ignore me. The next day I will probably be tweeting stuff they want to hear.
With twitter you have to be selective who you follow, and engage with people. At conferences twitter also gives the little person at the back a voice, and also people all over the world a chance to contribute. A back channel is a good thing, as long as it doesn’t take over. It is a tool. Noble are the people using it. Far easier to sit back and just soak it in, but who is taking the notes? Twitter is. You only have to look.
As for tweeting inanely,its the little inane tweets that brighten up the day. Some of the cleverest most useful people I follow do the odd ‘what i had for breakfast’ tweets but it just makes them more human. Bots can be boring. If twitter was just bots tweeting nobody would use it. Its us humans that are harnessing the tech and bringing out the good. (and the bad)
As ever, just my humble opinion.
chris
Posted by cyberdoyle on September 14th, 2009.
Steve – Re: the “taking on” feel this might well be a case where 140chars sometimes makes for slightly unintelligent use of language? – in which case mea maxima culpa.
I actually meant “taking on” or “tackles” in the sense of “addresses” but I can see how you might feel that “taking on” gave the wrong impression. Tweet deleted. Thanks for excellent and thought-provoking post.
Posted by Dominique Jackson on September 14th, 2009.
I think most conference tweeting is bait and switch. People follow you for your everyday Twitter stream and then suddenly you are filling it with an excessive stream of tweets about a conference. I refuse to use my personal account (@niltiac) in this way.
That’s not to say that Twitter isn’t useful for conferences but I think it requires a little thought. I was hired to tweet for FIPP 2009 World Magazine Congress – so, at my suggestion, we set up a @fipp2009 account to do it from.
More recently I knew I’d be spending four days at the Book Passage Travel Writing and Photography Conference and that there was a subset of my followers who would like to know what was going on. I also knew that many of my followers wouldn’t care. I wanted to cater for both so I set up @niltiac_bp, told my followers on @niltiac about it, and used the #bptravel hashtag. I ended up with over 100 people following on @niltiac_bp over the four days but I didn’t annoy the other 1500-odd people who follow @niltiac.
Posted by Caitlin on September 14th, 2009.
Agree with Caitlin there, we did the same for @nextgenus conference, it makes life a lot simpler if you know you are gonna be doing a deluge of tweets. I lost many great followers before I realised some were following me for farming info, and weren’t interested in the broadband stuff. If a bigger than normal farm issue comes up I would revert to a lesser used twitter account and use the #farm hashtag so I don’t mess up my broadband followers. Suppose when you have more than one interest it can get tricky, and that is why people have multiple accounts. Probably easier not to overtweet and just keep one account? Easier said than done for some of us though.
I do like your idea of just adding some letters to your original twitter name for one off events. Will copy that idea. (Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery)
cheers
chris
Posted by cyberdoyle on September 14th, 2009.
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/use-of-twitter-at-the-altc-2009-conference/
the above link is quite interesting on this subject
chris
Posted by cyberdoyle on September 14th, 2009.
Excellent example of HOW TO live blog successfully here:
(joanne jacobs on Nico MacDonald Innovation Reading Circle event Monday 14th)
http://joannejacobs.net/?p=1165
wonders of the real-time intrawebs innit?
Posted by Dominique Jackson on September 14th, 2009.
I agree with Caitlin: if you are going to tweet from an event or conference, set up a separate account. You can always direct people there and/or use hashtags.
I started using Twitter at an event run by the Craigslist Foundation at NYU summer of 2008. I wanted to share what I was learning with friends who couldn’t attend, and I knew my followers were interested in the subject.
It worked beautifully but I knew the majority of my community was interested. For AsburyPop, I set up a separate Twitter account and will tweet about the event and during the event just from that account … although I admit a few slips because I use Tweetdeck and sometimes forget what account I am on – people seem to forgive me though!
The Number One Rule of Twitter is Know Your Audience. Rule Number Two? Keep checking in with Rule Number One.
Posted by Laura Gesin on September 14th, 2009.
Laura,
I think a separate account is an excellent idea – it not only takes the noise away from your normal feed it also enables you to measure the interest in what you are doing – simply by seeing who signs up to it.
As regards other tools people are going to have to start being more honest with themselves. How big I deal is this? Just because I can stream it does that mean I should? Audio Boo? Really?
And in terms of what you are producing – try and promote debate. Ask questions. Provoke responses. If you allow it you hashtagged noise will have no value and it will all be about the quality of the coffee or @ name dropping for ego and self advancement.
Also – encourage blogging. Whatever the wider advancements have been in web2.0 it’s still about blogging. Everything else is just signposts.
If we lose blogs and bloggers then all we have are signposts sending us round in circles.
Posted by Steve Jackson on September 16th, 2009.
Your viewpoint is pretty provocative and I agree with you to some extent.
Most tweets are of the back-slapping variety. Maybe it’s because Twitter is primarily a networking forum. I doubt most people would go to an in-person networking event and start criticizing people. “Oh, your last blog post was just awful.”
The medium’s more about spotting things you like. Most people on Twitter are bloggers or other people working at building their tribe. Maybe it’s harder to do that by being snarky or explaining what you don’t like about something.
It seems like it’s important to keep this in mind if you’re using Twitter as a journalist. What’s the motive behind this person’s tweets? Most serious Twitter users probably have one.
Posted by Steven Roll on September 29th, 2009.