Rant: The Challenges of Social Media

Posted on October 4th, 2007 in: Feedback, Social Media

Social Media pessimist, Andrew Keen, has gotten to me.

I first heard him speak at Vancouver’s vid fest, he was snarling at a public debate, and was able to tear into at least one of the panelists pretty well. I then started to watch his videos on TechOne with Steve Gilmor (language and obnoxious attitudes), be sure to watch the debate series. Apparently, he’s producing shows on PodTech, where I just left my full time role. Shhh don’t tell, but when no one’s looking, I read his blog.

After you develop your callous from his abrasiveness you can hear some very valid points, he often writes about the problems of social media, and authored the hell raising “Cult of the Amateur”.

In his latest post he writes:

“Why am I the only critic of Web 2.0, people want to know? Why aren’t there other voices being raised against the utopians of Silicon Valley?”

I hear you Andrew. In an effort to be objective, it’s important that we take a look at both the ceiling and the floor of our industry to best balance and make sound decisions. My new friend Jennifer Doctor doesn’t prefer the term “360 View”, but until I have a better term, I’ll use it.

I’ve sung the praises of these tools after using them myself, I want to make sure we look at things in a fair and unbiased way, so here’s a 360 view:

Mainstream Media:
Andrew suggests that mainstream media has improved it’s quality of reporting in the last few years, primarily since the internet and citizen journalists have provided some competition. In many ways he’s right, as most of the savvy journalists I know are reading techmeme, my blog, and others. Sadly, I was recently references in an article, yet they don’t link to my post where there’s supplemental information, providing more value to the readers.

Blogging:
Well there’s tons of problems with blogging, the amount of splogs is quite amazing, I see clippets of my blog posts being used in copy cat blogs that are laced with ads. The sheer amount of content being created has also left it very difficult for consumers to sort and filter out what is signal to them. I hesitate to bring up astro-turfing and fake blogging but that’s a big problem, blogs are only as authentic as the humans behind them

Video:
The online video industry is just getting started, as more content is being created, the platforms are still dealing with issues with copyrights, trade infringements, and other concerns when it comes to intellectual property. Uploaders don’t seem to mind using content for other artists. Likely, this won’t go away.

Social Networks:
What’s wrong with social networks? There’s concerns about identity, profile information and how that can be shared. While we want to be able to transport our identity and contacts from one system to another, we also yell and scream when the platforms use our own identity to market against us. Let alone the concerns that Steve Ballmer has about different social networks being a fad. To some extent, he’s right, the younger generation in North America has chewed through Friendster, is still in MySpace, and the college grads are migrating towards Facebook, one has to ask, what’s next?

Marketers:
I’m perceived as a Marketer (although I consider myself a “web professional”, as I’ve been in IT, and worked on extranets and intranets) but whenever webtools, search, or concepts become popular, marketers quickly arrive, and often bombard the scene. The ‘cool kids’ may move on, furthering the cat and mouse chase. Done correctly, this shouldn’t be a problem, as the savvy marketer should be adding value. I was trailing Robert Scoble at PodTech, watching what he does right, and ignoring the tools he threw away, and then my community would follow me, so I’m certainly perpetuating the issue.

Wikis:
To me, public wikis are one of the most problematic of all the social tools. I’ve created, managed, or been part of several public wikis, and as soon as they get popular, they get vandalized. The challenge is that turning over that much control over to the crowd gives one person nearly 90% control of the content. Sure, you can revert it but it becomes a cat and mouse game. I deployed the industry wiki for the Data Storage Industry, and we had to lock it, and hand out keys to trusted members of the community due to vandalism, same with the ScobleShow wiki, which is permanently disabled. Wikipedia? Same thing. In my frustration, I wrote this piece on the problem with wikis is people.

I’d like your participation, either in comments or your own blog:

1) There’s weaknesses with all of the other tools, roles, and processes, go ahead, belt it out, get some frustration out.

2) In addition to labeling the challenge, suggest ways we can improve them, go ahead, even the wildest ideas should be heard.

3) Can these problems ever be fixed? Or is it an inherent issue when dealing with humans?

Why am I encouraging this negativity around what I’ve made a career? Now that we can identity some of the problems, let’s go fix them.

Filed under: Feedback, Social Media  
  • http://communitycommunity.blogspot.com Sanjay

    I think this due to the “innovators and early adopters” (Diffusion of innovations )who are excited with technology. Very few social sites have lived up to their expectations to keep their interest. Just recall how many new things we signed up for when they launched, only a very few sites have kept our interest to remain there.

    Facebook is a good example where they let the community to do the innovation to keep us all interested. Google also does this with more than 10,000 employees. Many marketers are slow to adopt to these changes and when they do the communities have shifted.

    Only 1/6 the of the global population is online and show limited use. If you analyze I am sure that the most of the social media sites are driven by innovators and early adopters. I am wondering if it is safe to further divide the innovator (2.5%) and early adopter (13.5%) population again by 16% as this model was developed so long ago.

    Any comments?

  • http://www.blabberize.com Mo Kakwan

    I think this is all part of the development process of how the internet is going to iterate towards becoming more seamless in our lives. Right now our content delivery methods are video and text. They’re not really predictive nor are any of the internet based services essential for a person to operate in society. Plenty of people live without broadband lines and don’t touch a computer for weeks. I see many of these problems in the future becoming less as social networks and such figure out how to become that illusive total cloud computing solution.

    Amazon is already marching a trail towards it. Facebook is hinting at it. Google is pushing it from all sides. And Microsoft is playing catchup. Once we get more seamless interaction with social media via cloud computing/social networking we should see less Splogs and vandalism because information is filtered by the group of individuals that access it. In a small sense look at Google page rank. If a page is linked to, it is pushed to the top. Essentially the internet is a large filter for information pushing relevant topics to the front. I think this will only expand and further develop to the point that splogs, vandalized wikis and other crap information don’t travel far enough to be a huge problem.

    The wiki stuff I’m not very educated on. How often does wikipedia get trashed?

    Oh btw Jeremiah, I cleaned up the look of the blabberize blog (blog.blabberize.com). I also set up my own person blog too (www.wavewash.net)

  • http://bernaisesource.blog.com Dan Greenfield

    I see you are living up to your Biblical namestake today — a prophet who is remembered for his angry lamentations (jeremiads) about the wickedness of his people. :-)

    All kidding aside, you raise a good point. We can all take solace in knowing that hype usually accompanies change. History will show us that there is usually a backlash, but the good of social media is here to say.

    My response is less about technology and more about the mixed signals we are giving. We often talk about how people don’t get social media and how they are missing out. At the same time, we mistakenly assume that everyone is using applications like Twitter and social networks like Facebook and how old school blogging has become.

    We are impatient for change, but we are not always sure of the end game.

  • http://insideconversation.wordpress.com Lee White

    I put up a post the other day that relates to this in some ways. My main point was that social media tools are not a fix-all. There are places where the tools work extremely well and some where they don’t work at all. What we as practitioners need to do is to clearly define objectives, understand what the tools are best at doing and then match the right tools to the specific need.

    What I see in most of the Social Media criticism are situations where the tools is not well matched with the purpose it is being used for.

  • http://thenewmarketing.com Wade Rockett

    Wow, that’s the mildest, most even-handed rant I’ve ever seen!

    Regarding the faddish nature of specific social networks, I don’t see that as a count against them – just a reality that we need to recognize. Like the world of fashion, say, or hip-hop, social networking is an environment where people will rush to the next big thing in droves. We have to be nimble enough to keep pace with them.

  • http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/ jeremiah_owyang

    Sanjay, thanks for the global perspective.

    Mo, your site makes me giggle too. Wikipedia had to lock down much of the open network a few years ago, and now the ‘mods’ maintain more strict control, it’s no longer socialism, but representative democracy.

    Dan, wait ’till you see me really made, this is nothing. I guess I’m still old school.

    Lee, spoken like a genius, yup, problem, solution, then tool selection. How we often fail at this.

    Wade, I’m a light-weight wimp when it comes to rants. You’re right, flexibility and agility is key.

  • Pingback: ROI: Return on Internet

  • http://www.infinitemarketingsolutions.com.au Carly Black

    I think, as in just about all things, there will never be a system, tool, product or procedure that won’t have it’s pros and cons.

    When people are involved you are all of a sudden dealing with different personalities, values and ideas… where we may think they’re vandalising (not that I agree with it) they may see an opportunity of some sorts. There will always be ways of monitoring and restriciting certain areas of freedom, however I think what it really comes down to is the website owner’s choice of integration or not.

    People go into these things with their eyes wide open, so there’s no point in whinging about the consequences if and when they occur, you just need to make a new decision and deal with them…

    We have great tools, so much freedom of speech and such an amazing array of technology. My belief is embrace what you want to adapt for yourself and discard the rest. Thanks for your view on the subject.

  • http://ebizz.wordpress.com Christopher Salazar

    I think you touched upon a good point when you mentioned “cool kids.” Let’s call the early adopters, cool kids, and assume they are always on the hunt for the next best tool/site/medium. My issue is when things hit mainstream, the cool kids leave, but in some cases this might cause a hault. The hault or abrupt stop is a major setback. I fear that the cool kids leave too fast and with little instruction on how to proceed. Yes, they’ve left their own accomplishments and mistakes behind to reference, but thats it. There still has to be someone or a group who actively monitors what’s going on…sort of like an “angel.”

    The angel swoops in when needed to provide guidance…sometimes this is missing when the cool kids leave too fast and abruptly. Its difficult to keep up, sometimes discouraging too.

    We need Community Angels…who can they be?

  • http://www.socialmedia.biz JD Lasica

    Hi Jeremiah. I think you’re right about public wikis, but wrong about Wikipedia, where a fairly effective and vigilant global team is in place to weed out the dickheads who constantly try to vandalize it.

  • http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/ jeremiah_owyang

    Cary you’re right of course. I’m sure every carpenter knows the strengths and weaknesses of every tool to build the house.

    The “strategic” carpenter will line all these tools up, by process, and by role, to get the job done efficiently.

    Chris, I like these roles, good analysis. An angel could be a community manager?

  • http://occamsrazr.com Ike

    Keen is asking some important questions. Truth is, he doesn’t have anything else figured out more than anyone else, but he deserves credit for forcing everyone to question assumptions.

    I’m ditching the 360 View for the Long View – and the Long View will show us all to be comically poking and prodding an embryo, and arguing about what kind of dinosaur it will become.

  • http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/ jeremiah_owyang

    Sadly, Dinosaur’s go extinct, but I get the point.

  • Christopher Coulter

    Mildest even-handed rant? Well, “analysts” have to play all tables, bet on everything, and then when have an obvious winner or loser, easy to swoop in, claiming you knew and predicted it all along, taking firm-hard stands on anything is near-fatal — you need flexibility and enough broad-handed generic applicational usage, to fit into any situation. Modern Day Soothsayers, in $500 suits. Corporates get some quick relief, and consultants to eventually blame.

    Mainstream Media? What even defines “mainstream”? Popularity? History? Ideology? Rush Limbaugh can command audiences triple anyone else, yet he’s not considered ‘mainstream’. The most-read “Blogs” (or rather content-managed-systems) have morphed into professional news sites, with advertisers and publishing schedules, are they now Mainstream Media? Defining terms, is the first step, and you haven’t even got that far. ;)

    There are more splogs, than blogs. Google is gamed beyond help. Brave New World. For every action…

    Not everyone with a video camera, has anything interesting to say, in fact, most are just big egos, blathering on; the rest just steal stuff. Just because you can, still doesn’t mean anyone’s listening or caring.

    Social Networks are faddish eventual ghost-towns, as unless you are a narcissist or doing it for status sake alone, real people end up mattering more. And run from those that live online.

    Marketers are just jumping onto whatever is the ‘hot item’ of the moment, nothing strategic about that, real strategy is long-term complex, and more focused than the latest widget, and even at that strategies assume a planned control system, resulting in Soviet-styled 5 year plans. The capitialist system works best on fast-acting raw instinct, holding forth to some “strategy” that no longer mirrors reality is suicide, which is why a strategy that doesn’t change, isn’t a strategy. It’s a big game, the ball is always in play, move constantly.

    Wiki’s are Marxified-utopian pipe dreams, eventually it all implodes, as no incentives to fix or correct bad data.

    Can it be fixed? No. All are flawed from the get-go, everything has it’s “Hawthorne Effect”. Can it be understood and managed? No, as the “managees” will eventually grasp that they are “being managed”, and the results will bottom out. Can it be buzzworded, labeled, marketed, and repackaged as the new cool ‘must-do’ thing? Yes.

  • http://www.leveragesoftware.com mike walsh

    Great topic with follow up posts. I agree with many of the points above. There is some fad and some gaming but there is also some real value. The communities that people participate in and that have long term success are that that provide real value to all stakeholders; end users or contributors, the host, and the people whom financially support the community (could be advertisers, sponsors, donation contributors, etc).

    A few good examples include BabyCenter, craigslist, yelp, hotelchatter, your blog, and some corporate, consumer and industry social networks. Like most things – people will end up where the value equation works for them and the return on investment of time and cash pays off. The point is to be careful to differentiate between hype and value when participating or hosting and consider your real objectives and whether you can meet those objectives in the particular environment.

    You can use similar decision making that you use when you decide what to buy, which hotel to stay at, what price to pay for a particular airline that you wish to fly, where to send your kids to school, what to watch, listen to or read. ANyhow – great topic Jeremiah.

  • http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/ Larissa Fair

    A very interesting argument and topic. I think that while social media is really exciting and many people are adopting it as “mainstream” – there are still many more that just aren’t experiencing it in the same way. It’s easy for us in the industry to analyze and discuss, but we forget that (as Mo mentioned) there are millions of people NOT connected to Web 2.0. They have no desire, want or need to be. Does that mean they are not communicating or participating in the interaction? No.

    I think the most compelling case I’ve heard against Web 2.0 is the fact that it weakens real human interaction. However, I think it also strengthens the bonds that bring us all together – by providing at the bare minimum the opportunity for people to share their lives with each other (through video, picture, social networking, blogging, etc). And, that’s something that can give anyone a sense of community and belonging – which I think is the basis of social media.

  • Pingback: The Facade of Web 2.0 - Part 3 (Social Media) | Endoh Pure Ranting Room

  • Pingback: Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire! » The Buzz Bin

  • Pingback: The Impact of the "In Crowd" » The Buzz Bin