Everyone knows print media, particularly the daily newspaper, is on the ropes. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, this year, for the first time, the internet has surpassed the popularity of newspapers as a source of national and international news.

Source: Pew Foundation

Fortunately, television, cited by 70% of respondents as their primary news source, continues to lead, with CNN as the most watched network. I say fortunately, because I think the imminent demise of the daily paper has dangerous implications for the freedom and diversity of journalism.

When I was in journalism school, broadcast news, and particularly television news, was considered superficial and not as credible as print. The New York Times, Washington Post and Christian Science Monitor were held up as examples of the highest standards of journalistic excellence.

In October, the Christian Science Monitor announced it was shutting down its print version and moving all of its reporting online. Every time a traditional print publication shuts down or trims staff, and every time there’s an industry report on the ever widening gap between print and online readership, there are those (like myself) who mourn the loss of media diversity and those who say things like, “So what? If newspapers are irrelevant to readers, they deserve to fail.”
Typical of the responses by those not concerned with this trend are these remarks by Cyrus Farivar on Salon.com:

“I know that the Monitor is still a well-respected paper, but honestly, I don’t know anyone who reads it regularly (except for maybe a few journalism professors), and so it seems that this is the way to go if they want to survive.
As Andie Tucher, an associate professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, told the AP, the Monitor is usually a second-read analysis newspaper, not a must-read:

‘That’s the real crisis for papers like this,’ she said. ‘Rather than reading that as my second or third paper, I now go online and browse Slate and Salon and the political sites, and I can read any other paper I like. It becomes much less urgent to indulge in the Christian Science Monitor.’
Further, I don’t know any of my peers in the 18-35 demographic who subscribe to a print newspaper on a daily basis, but I would argue that most of my friends are better informed as they keep up with the world online on a more constant basis.

Why do I think this is dangerous? With the rejection of print media and increasing reliance on the internet, we are quickly headed to a system based on a single news distribution channel. That’s fine in a free society, but history has shown over and over that governments long to control the media. And the internet is by no means a bastion of press freedom.
Obviously there are checks and balances, but how hard would it be for a government to lock down the internet? With the power of the government and its previously demonstrated willingness to ignore fundamental rights in a “national emergency,” could probably be done in a few hours.
The Worldwide Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders found that internet filtering and monitoring are common in many nations, as are arrests for dissident remarks: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29031

“In Egypt (146th of 173), demonstrations launched online shook the capital and alarmed the government, which now regards every Internet user as a potential danger. The use of Internet filtering is growing by the year and the most repressive governments do not hesitate to jail bloggers. While China (167th) still leads the ‘Internet black hole’ ranking worldwide, deploying considerable technical resources to control Internet users, Syria (159th) is the Middle-East champion in cyber-repression. Internet surveillance is so thorough there that even the least criticism posted online is sooner or later followed by arrest.”

It’s not just a third world/emerging world problem. The 2001 U.S. Patriot Act granted broad government latitude and loosened restrictions on wiretaps, access to information, subpoenas, and other investigative tools. The Patriot Act has been used against the media. For example, in September, 2003, the FBI invoked the Act in its investigation of hacker Adrian Lamo in what The Register referred to as bypassing the First Amendment.
I don’t have any “answers” to this imminent loss of media diversity and freedom, and the potential for near complete government control of the internet. I do think we need to be careful about mindlessly bashing print (which is not the same as saying “it’s not convenient for me” or “it’s not how I prefer to get my news,” which are perfectly OK.) And more importantly, we need to remember that with consolidation of any kind, comes a loss of diversity and the potential for abuse.

The internet is not the solution to every problem we face.

Tags: The New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, CNN, Pew Research Center, Cyrus Farivar, Salon.com, Patriot Act, Worldwide Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders

Do a Twitter search on “wrong way to use Twitter”* and you’ll find all kinds of useful advice, like:

“There are some people who use twitter as a distilled Livejournal. This is wrong.”

What’s encouraging is that the number of updates that say, in essence, “there is no wrong way to use Twitter” far outweigh those that support the idea.

Norm Lanier, aka @CraftyCoach, writes “Twitter is one of the web 2.0 sites that people on Etsy really recommend for promotion. The problem is most are doing it wrong - REALLY WRONG.”

He goes on to cite the “two for one” style promotions many Etsy sellers use on Twitter. (Etsy is like an eBay designed for crafts people. I buy a lot there.) Norm thinks most Etsy sellers are using Twitter wrong, and to confirm a lack of understanding of social media among these folks, scroll down Norm’s blog post and see among the comments a lengthy promotion of one seller’s Etsy store and products.

I agree that these kinds of updates are annoying, and possibly ineffective, and maybe it’s semantics, but is it truly “wrong”? How many annoying banners and pop-ups are we presented with in a typical day of web browsing? How many of the popular blogs we visit have cheesy advertising in the sidebar? It may be cheesy, but it’s not “wrong,” and some companies are making a lot of money using these techniques.

There’s another argument in opposition to “one-way” Twitter accounts. These are usually characterized by having a large number of followers and a small number of people the account is following in return, and are referred to as using “broadcast” mode.

The “broadcast” mode is often used by large corporations. It is generally, but not always, an automated RSS feed from the company’s blog or web site. (You can do this with twitterfeed.) There is nothing wrong with this! I subscribe to many “one-way” feeds, particularly from media outlets like The New York Times (16,465 followers, following 32), Harpers, Wired News, PBS**, etc. While it would be great to chat with these media giants, perhaps to tell the folks at PBS that I want more episodes of Antiques Roadshow that focus on Navajo blankets (I don’t really), this might not be the most efficient way for either of us to carry on this conversation.

The problem of calling certain uses of Twitter “wrong” is that you can only start to make such a case when you say, for example, “Twitter is a social network,” and then you apply the etiquette (rarely are there rules) of social networking. But it’s not a social network to everyone else, particularly the people who annoy you most with their perceived misuse of Twitter.

As many (including myself) have noted, what makes Twitter so powerful and useful is that it can be shaped by each user, personal or corporate, for a particular need. It can be:

• A social network
• Chat
• Instant messaging
• A “pointer” site
• A moderated news feed
• Whatever you want it to be
• Whatever I want it to be

It all reminds me of the old complaint that “there’s nothing but trash on TV.” I’m going to let you in on my secret way of dealing with this: I don’t follow anyone whose updates I don’t find useful.

In all my reading, I came across just one use of Twitter that I could agree was simply wrong:

TheHRLawyer: Now THIS is the WRONG way to use Twitter. Argh! http://tinyurl.com/69rdnj

The link goes to a story of how a reporter for Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News did a live Twitter “play-by-play” of the funeral of a three-year-old killed in a collision. Wrong. Definitely.

So just what is the absolute worst way to use Twitter? Signing up and building a list of followers so you can tell them how they are misusing Twitter.

* You may get proxy errors like I did. Keep trying.

** PBS also offers PBSEngage on Twitter, an account with “posts by real people” PBS has around a dozen Twitter accounts for various purposes

Tags: The New York Times, Harpers, Wired News, PBS, twitterfeed, Etsy, Norm Lanier, CraftyCoach

Peachpit, publisher of my new book SocialCorp, has kindly invited me to join them in their booth at Macworld San Francisco to talk about Twitter business basics and to sign copies of the book (available in the booth #S-1026). I will be there Friday, January 9, 2009, at 2 P.M. My chat will cover both a general introduction to Twitter as well as a discussion of how businesses are using it. If you’re in the Bay Area, I hope to see you there!

Tags: Peachpit, New Riders, SocialCorp, Twitter, Joel Postman, Macworld, San Francisco, 2009

I think Niall Cook’s Five steps to a successful corporate Twitter presence (Registration required) is useful for corporate spokespeople interested in adopting Twitter for one particular kind of communications, but Cook may leave some with the impression that this is the only “acceptable” way for a company to use the service.

Cook refers to Twitter as a “microblogging community” and a form of “social media.” Both community and social suggest interaction, and while interaction is a desirable characteristic, it is not required. I subscribe to Twitter feeds from the New York Times, Harper’s, PBS and many other media outlets that do not interact with me, nor do I expect them to.

The beauty of Twitter is that it is what you make of it, and you can make so many things of it. It doesn’t make sense to apply one communications “model” to Twitter and then say, “anyone who doesn’t do it this way, doesn’t get it.” Twitter can be a microblogging site, a community, a social network, chat, instant messaging, a news feed and a “pointer site.”

The “right” way to choose a Twitter ID and brand your company’s Twitter profile and avatar comes down to how and why you use Twitter. While some identifiable employees, like C-level executives and community managers, may best use Twitter with their real names as identification, this practice does not make sense for general corporate communications or customer support applications. It doesn’t scale. People don’t want to search for or have to remember the name of the person who does customer support for JetBlue or Zappos or Comcast. And with people moving in and out of various organizations within a company, using individual names for customer support or for corporate communications is a nightmare.

Other advice is also useful, but not universal. For example, the suggestion to carry on all conversations via the public timeline and to not use direct messages may violate consumer privacy. Watch @ComcastCares (and others) on Twitter who often tweet “DM me your phone number,” so as to protect consumer privacy.

I recommend, in my eerily similarly titled piece “Seven Rules for Establishing a Corporate Presence on Twitter” that companies consider their objectives when choosing a communications model and accompanying Twitter brand identity.

Tags: Niall Cook, corporate presence, Twitter

SocialCorp and two other ‘must-read’ books on social media for business are included in a nice review posted by Jennifer Leggio this morning on ZDNet. Jennifer writes:

“I’m about three-quarters of the way through the book and I am having trouble putting it down. Postman sees social media for what it is — a complementing strategy for companies to help them achieve their already established business objectives. He writes about specific considerations that both private and public companies should make before introducing social media programs. And he understands the risks. He also included one of the most comprehensive social media glossaries I’ve ever seen. I can’t wait to finish it.”

As Jennifer mentions in her review, she won the book in a karaoke contest held at last week’s Silicon Valley Tweetup, at the British Banker’s Club in Menlo Park. I had offered a copy of the book as a prize for the contest, and Jeremiah Owyang, who organized the event, decided I could also judge the contest.

I was also happy to see SocialCorp in the esteemed company of “Twitter Means Business” by Julio Ojeda-Zapata and “Personality Not Included” by Rohit Bhargava.

Tags: Tweetup, British Bankers Club, Menlo Park, Jeremiah Owyang, Twitter Means Business, Julio Ojeda-Zapata, Personality Not Included, Rohit Bhargava, Jennifer Leggio, ZDNet