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Remember the telegraph? Twitter does.

Dec 4th, 2010
by ajnewman.
2 comments

This graphic is absolutely awesome. Poynter’s David Shedden talks about it in his latest post and if you haven’t already, you should stop reading and go check it out. The rest of this post can wait until you’re done being dazzled by how many times people have thought of news ways to connect with one another.

The graphic reminds me of a conversation that I had with a professor in the journalism school. Facebook and social networking websites in general are not a new concept, he was saying. All the Internet has done is made it easier for people to do what they have been doing for years. For example, scrap booking. He made the argument that scrapbooks, like Facebook pages, are just ways that people log their lives. On Facebook, all of our friends can see it at once. With scrapbooks, people used to have to share them with one another. Sure, you had to physically get it from person A to B, but the idea is the same: connecting with other people.

Shedden writes:

I was especially glad to see the timeline include Compuserve, Usenet and BBS systems as early technological pioneers. Although they didn’t call it “social media” at the time, these types of services created the foundation for the online social networks we use today.

Those things were before my time – and probably before the time of anyone reading this blog – but that’s just the point that I like so much about this timeline. We’ve been social networking since before we called it social networking. This graphic by Skloog puts all that history in perspective in a way that is streamlined and easy to digest.

Palin ‘favorites’ photo that claims Obama is a ‘Taliban Muslim’

Nov 4th, 2010
by ajnewman.
3 comments

This Thursday night, Sarah Palin “favorited” and RT a Twitter posting of Anne Coulter. Coulter had commented “my new church”along with a photo of a church sign. The sign read: “The Blood of Jesus ATLAH World Missionary Church,” and the text on the sign reads, “The blood of Jesus against Obama History made 4 Nov 2008 a Taliban Muslim illegally elected president USA: Hussein.”

By Thursday(11/4) night, all of Palin’s favorites had been cleared on Twitter. Palin claims that she never even knew the function of “favorites” was possible. She had to go back to her blackberry and check what had happened.

Palin responded to ABC’s Jake Tapper

Jake, I’ve never purposefully ‘favorited’ any Tweet. I had to go back to my BlackBerry to even see if such a function was possible

It is obvious how Palin feels about Obama as our President and it is hard to believe her comments on the error.

The link below shows an image of the sign and Palin’s Twitter account with it on her “favorites”.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/11/palin-retweets-photo-that-clai.html?hpid=moreheadlines

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/11/04/new-palin-scandal-her-twitter-favorites-list-is-racist-or-something/

FarmVille Game Cited in Baby’s Murder

Oct 29th, 2010
by ajnewman.
3 comments

Will we soon see a 12-step program for FarmVille addicts?

According to a recent article reported by The Florida Times-Union, a mother from Jacksonville killed her 3-month-old son when the baby’s crying interrupted her virtual game of FarmVille.

Alexandra Tobias, 22, pleaded guilty on Wednesday for the second-degree murder of her son:

She told investigators she became angry because the baby was crying while she was playing a computer game called FarmVille on the Facebook social-networking website.

I have never played FarmVille, but have heard that it’s pretty addicting; apparently people have lost their jobs and have racked up debts through their obsession. However, the fact that a mother killed her own child over a virtual game is extremely disturbing—and it has gone way too far.

This problem is something that Facebook programmers should address. Whether it’s controlling the amount of time that users can spend on the game or doing away with the real-life money aspect, the addictive nature of the game needs to be toned down before someone else gets killed.

Twitter just seems to get everyone in trouble.

Sep 20th, 2010
by ajnewman.
1 comment

Not a day goes by without some sort of story about the misuse of Twitter. From personal life to professional life (and everywhere in between) Twitter is really giving me a headache. Now there are even Twitter debacles from the sports world. Athletes and fans just always take things way too far.

Miami Hurricanes quarterback Jacory Harris reportedly received racially motivated hate messages from some of his Twitter followers after his team’s 36-24 loss to Ohio State on Sept. 11. He threw four interceptions (matching his career-worst). Harris stated that at least one message said that he should not be a quarterback “because he is black”. He deleted his Twitter account last week.

On Sept. 15th, Miami banned players from using Twitter.

ESPN reported on the issue yesterday.

Harris used Twitter on Wednesday to apologize to fans for that performance, and said he skipped through many of the messages he received because they were mainly negative.

“You see some things and you get kind of hurt, because sometimes it’s your fans that say the things,” Harris said. “It’ll be the ones that probably just before the game wrote you some encouraging message, then after the game say they don’t want a black quarterback here. Stuff like that. It’s cool.”

Harris said that he wasn’t letting the messages get him down, and he didn’t want the media to focus on them either. Ha, yeah right.

This issue isn’t just a college-age problem or an American problem. Twitter has been causing problems for athletes across the pond as well.

Kevin Pietersen and Dimitri Mascarenhas, two cricket players from England, were fined for unsavory tweeting in early Sept. After separate hearings following their individual Twitter outbursts, the pair were fined undisclosed amounts.

Mascarenhas, in reference to the chairman of selectors Geoff Miller wrote:

“Chairman of selectors came and didn’t even come say hi.. What a prick … Doesn’t take much to say hello does it??” followed by: “Geoff miller is a complete knob..He had no clue what he is doing..F-ing prick.”

Both athletes apologized.

Long ago are the days when Twitter was irrelevant. It seems, at least for the time being, that Twitter is here to stay and here for people to abuse. Sigh.

Grandparents on Facebook?

Sep 17th, 2010
by ajnewman.
1 comment

When Facebook suggested that I added my grandmother as a friend, I thought that the Internet might be going a little too far. The potential for awkwardness seemed infinite. Apparently, however, my 80-year-old grandma isn’t the only tech-trendy senior citizen keeping up with the times.

According to this CNN article, a recent Pew Research Center study showed that 26 percent of Internet users over the age of 65 use social media. Supporting what we learned on Wednesday, the article also reports that 47 percent of Internet users between the ages of 50 and 64 said they use social media as well. Just last month, the Twittersphere saw the death of who was thought to be the world’s oldest twitterer at age 104.

Unsurprisingly, 85 percent of young adult users say they regularly use social media – almost three times as many as those in the oldest age group. However, one Pew Research specialist says that young adults’ growth in the world of social media “pales in comparison with recent gains made by older users.” If this trend continues, it won’t be long before Facebook and Twitter begin to cater to this specific age group – will there be extra large font options? Will senior citizens be able to tweet in their pharmacy prescriptions?

Most interesting is how the article explains that while younger users flock to tools like Facebook and Twitter to connect with new  friends and trends, the older set uses social media to reconnect: “Almost all my old high school friends are on. It’s been amazing to reconnect,” says one user. After reading about the excitement the interviewees expressed at discovering sites like Facebook and Twitter, I began to understand the importance of  a tool like social media for older generations. Though it may mean stricter monitoring of my online activity and my privacy controls, I just may get used to occasional wall posts from my grandmother.

Twitter is changing. Soon.

Sep 14th, 2010
by ajnewman.
No comments yet

I just came across this quick blurb via @huffingtonpost that briefly details the unveiling of a new Twitter.com (screenshot included): http://huff.to/a7NsBf

Just by scanning the image, most of the changes look aesthetic: mentions, retweets, searches and lists will be directly above your feed, which doesn’t look like it’s changing much (good!). The biggest difference, though, is on the right, where information about trending topics and your followers will be placed in a more dominant sized box (comparable to the feed on the left). This is likely because you’ll be able to view pictures and videos much easier.

Here’s where Twitter describes the changes: http://twitter.com/newtwitter. According to the site:

Now, it’s easy to see embedded photos and videos directly on Twitter, thanks to partnerships with Dailybooth, DeviantArt, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, Twitvid, USTREAM, Vimeo, Yfrog, and YouTube.

Right now, I’m indifferent. My favorite thing about Twitter is that, unlike Facebook, it has barely changed aesthetically in the last few years. I’m sure they’ll go over more smoothly than Facebook’s have, since this seems to be one of the first major overhauls of the site in its nearly five-year history, but the thought of change never sits well with me.

Twitter says it’ll roll out the changes gradually so users, like you and I, can get to know where everything is and how everything works before they’re mandated for all users. We’ll see how it goes!

Twitter controversy at WaPo: What are the consequences for a fictional Tweet?

Sep 5th, 2010
by ajnewman.
1 comment

In this morning’s Washington Post, Ombudsman Andrew Alexander explains how on Friday, a joke Tweet posted by sports columnist Mike Wise resulted in a 30-day suspension from the paper.

According to Alexander, “Wise said he had it on “good authority” that Roethlisberger’s suspension would be reduced to five games. He said he planned to publish it to his Twitter account as an experiment to show how unverified information often is picked up and spread online. Soon, he tweeted: “Roethlisberger will get five games, I’m told.”

Several news outlets, as Wise predicted, picked up the story.

Within hours, Wise apologized via Twitter for his joke.

Mike Wise's tweets on Aug. 30

Mike Wise's tweets on Aug. 30 after his fictional tweet about Rothlisberger's suspension.

Alexander explains the Post‘s reasoning behind the suspension:

But The Post’s internal rules say explicitly that when using social media, “we must remember that Washington Post journalists are always Washington Post journalists.”

Further: “Post journalists must recognize that any content associated with them in an online social network is, for practical purposes, the equivalent of what appears beneath their bylines in the newspaper or our Web site.”

For journalists operating in today’s multimedia world, there’s no excuse for a lack of awareness about the risks and responsibilities of social media. It’s a topic of endless discussion in the industry and at The Post. The fact that Wise’s “experiment” was somewhat premeditated only underscores his bad judgment.

But at its core, what Wise did isn’t about social media. It’s about fabrication, which is indefensible, even if done in jest. Our business is truth. A journalist’s falsehood on Twitter is the same as a falsehood in the paper.

So here are some things to think about.

  • Is a columnist held to the same standards as other reporters in the newsroom? They have more liberty with their writing and many, especially sports columnists, are liked by readers for their opinions and personality. Was Wise playing to his audience or being careless with the credibility bestowed upon him as a Post employee?
  • How does this compare with former Post blogger Dave Weigel, who resigned after posts on JournoList were leaked to the media?
  • The Washington Post created a strict social media policy a year ago. When it went out, it was heavily criticized for not embracing new media and the changing world.
  • And what about the news outlets who took Wise’s Tweet as fact? Are they blameless in this?

That’s a lot to think about and something we should discuss on Wednesday. I’m not going to tell you what to think about this, but this incident is an excellent example of how new media and old media just can’t get along.