It takes all of us…

 

 

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Question of the Week: Responsibilities of web services & their community

Once again, our Editorial Board convened to discuss one of the more compelling questions the Social Media community is facing as it contends with archiving, owning, distributing and maintaining its ever-growing archive of content. To whit, the hugely popular Facebook has suspended accounts if it ‘thinks’ users have misused the services based on what an algorithm finds and changes friend feeds at will. With millions of users, Twitter is noticeably absent in the customer service department, is in dire need of a functionality upgrade and its archiving protocol is subject to debate. Is this ‘fair’ to the community it serves? And how, in turn, should the user community really behave? What do you think? Please let us know your thoughts, experiences and examples of the social media community and social media service working both in tandem and NOT. 

Social Media Club Question of the Week:

What are the responsibilities of Web 2.0 services to engage with and respond to the community it serves and what are the responsibilities of the community to the service? (Twitter, Facebook, etc)?

Do you have examples to illustrate this? 

Listen in to the very short podcast discussion and contribute your perspective.

We welcome your comments, tweets and blog posts. Please tag your responses with the following tags:

#SMCQ2, #Responsibilites

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‘Coopetition’ in Action: Responses to SMC Question of the Week 1

Social Media Club’s Question of the Week kicked of 3/15/09 with the question “How can we best support our social media community and our peers knowing full well we’re often competing for the same clients and client money?”

We were pleased to have our social media community respond with a variety of comments, tweets and posts. True to form, members called for a combination of professionalism, collaboration and social innovation. We’ve highlighted some of the responses below.   

“Sharing what has worked and admitting where strategies have been punked is invaluable to our collective knowledge base,” @mollyrobben

“The only way to advance the profession is through collaborative efforts by social media professionals.”  — Pete Codella, http://www.petecodella.com

“If you look for a natural fit; a totally symbiotic relationship - it isn’t competition so much as finding what’s right.” @hhotelconsut

“So, if we are to pursue our individual passions and interests we need to know who else is doing neat things. The active use of social media in this regard leaves the other options in the dust. Without interaction we’re only as good as our individual thinking,” wrote Anthony Power at http://apowerpoint.blogspot.com. “Social media has one confounding problem,” he also noted. “it’s not only a tactic we can apply to client, it’s also the vehicle by which we communicate with one another.”

“After all, social media is a set of tools. I use them. I may help others learn to use them. Why should I even think of myself as competing with my colleagues? There are about 25 million small businesses in the United States alone, all of whom can benefit by learning to use social media. I will never reach them all.” —Francine Hardaway, http://blog.stealthmode.com 

Listen in Sunday, March 22, to hear the Social Media Club Editorial Board refine the second Question of the Week and check infor a post on the call so you can comment, blog and tweet your thoughts. After all, as Leslie Hawk at Life is Better with Lipstick wrote:

“Sometimes I find that if I am in a project too long, I only see what I want to see. I might miss a new angle or new avenue that we could explore that would benefit our clients. If I ignore what is being said about my project, client etc in the social media world, I am limiting myself as to the heights I can reach. I would say then that cooperation fosters competition - it breeds success!” —http://lifeisbetterwithlipstick.blogspot.com/

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SMC Question of the Week: Supporting our Peers & Ourselves

SMC Question of the Week: How can we best support our social media community and our peers knowing full well we’re often competing for the same clients and client money?

Interested in addressing how players in the industry who are seeking to walk the transparent talk that its business is built upon are succeeding, or failing, at using the tools in a way that truly serves the community, members of the Social Media Club Editorial Board gathered on Sunday amid the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin to kick off the SMC ‘Question of the Week” initiative by discussing and refining our first question.

At the same time that social media tools loosen the boundaries of communication to allow more avenues for both advertising and regular communications, it can present a temptation to those who are more interested in attention than service…or acting out of a scarcity model rather than abundance.

Call it cooperation, call it competition, or call it all out rivalry, doing business in Social Media is at once open, collaborative and governed by the bottom line.  SMC might call it ‘coopetition.’ Whereas some leaders in the field are interested in teaching best practices; others are more interested in number of followers, or becoming micro-celebrities in and of themselves. Often what on the surface appears to be a collaborative effort is derailed by competing agendas.

David Peck, of www.newmediachatter.com, concurred: “When I’m doing a project or something, I always look to my community because we’re a community, first.  If we could pull those resources together… competition is good but look here first to support each other.”

“A certain level of cooperation benefits everyone,” noted Kimberly Turner, cofounder and editor of http://regator.com.  “If I have a blog on a particular topic, and you have a blog on a particular topic; we might be competing for the same advertising dollars, but if we could get a discussion going and add value to one another through comments and blogging and referencing one another, we are adding value and it makes it easier, in the long run, for both of us.”

“Egos are a part of human nature,” said Julie Wohlberg, Director of Communications at Multiply, Inc.  “Unfortunately, social media sort of brings that to the forefront.  I think you do what you do, the best you can, and then people will ultimately figure out who is genuine and honest, who is competing, and what’s going on.”

Social media is free, media space is more abundant than ever in the new ‘knowledge economy.’ Some people are interested in true reach, others motives may not be so clear,and perhaps, the emphasis on free, may diminish the inherent value in having a real knowledge base.  

“It’s not so much being an influencer,” noted SMC’s Chris Heuer. “It’s being a teacher.”

We’d love to hear what you think. Please add your comments on the question below. Or better yet, blog about your experiences both supporting and perhaps competing with your peers, and tag your blog appropriately #SMCQ1, #Coopetition so we can report back on how the social media community is addressing the question:

How can we best support our social media community and our peers knowing full well we’re often competing for the same clients and client money?

TAG: #SMCQ1, #Coopetition

 

 

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Recap: What is the biggest ethical issue we face in Social Media today

I recently posted this ethical issue question that was brought up during the kick off meeting of SMC Los Angeles and received some interesting feedback. This responses below have been shortened, to read the responses in their entirety, please check out the original post for the top half, the others came via Twitter responses.

What is the biggest ethical question we face in Social Media today?:

• Vijay Goel, M.D. - Impact anonymity has to impact the digital reputation of others, especially where they have not opted in to that discussion.
• SeLiNa - Firms who misrepresent themselves online and try to deceive people by not being up front about their campaign activity, and pretending to be “user” and not a marketer.
• Kari Rippetoe - Do people who post information about themselves online have any expectation of privacy? Should social media sites play a larger role in ensuring the privacy of their users?
• Gfox - I think information sharing vs. keeping. We’re all about ’sharing’ except when it comes to our monetization secrets.
• Albert Maruggi - (1) Gaming the SEO system to gain rank, (2) underhanded manipulation of product reviews and comments, (3) the accumulation of friends with the intention of monetizing them.
• wayzgoose - (1) Exposure and (2) using social groups for promotion of ideology, business, or personal exploitation.
• Shawn Scott - Protecting free speech as it relates to transparency.
• Roxanne Darling - Competition for mind share.
• krash63 - Widening the net to listen to more voices.
• Chris Heuer - How do we give bad actors in the ecosystem (exploitative, manipulative, dishonest, rude, etc…) a bad reputation that is more visible for others to know who to take seriously and who to ignore?
• Steve Nimmons - Use of Social Media as a propaganda machine for some rather nefarious groups.
• Tom At The Home Business Archive - People tend to add people as friends to monetize them and also submit their own content to the all the sites, and every single blog post they write.
• tmarklein - Blurring of lines between “edit” and “advertising” — seems antiquated and important at same time.
• jamieortiz  - Transparency –educating CEOs to be honest in posts and comments.
• ShannonRenee - Purposeful misrepresentation of one’s self.
• gylonj - Honesty
• CandyLynn - Truth & honesty
• GILL_Media - What’re the limits of marketing as community participation? What’s the divide between spam and promotion to receptive ears?
• jljohansen - Inconsistant definitions of ethics. We aren’t on the same page, or even in the same book.
• NancyMarmolejo - Spammers!
• LewisG - Identity theft (privacy).
• leadingzero - When and how to get paid.
• runnerkik - Protecting children who widely use social media in ways many parents don’t know how to protect. 

Thank you to everyone who offered a response!

Have any thoughts on ethical issues that weren’t covered? Add them in the comments and I will update the post.

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What is the biggest ethical issue we face in Social Media today?

A great question that was brought up in the SMC Los Angeles gathering tonight. I can think of one or two issues at hand.

What issue is chomping at your bit?

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Why did Ragan Really Delete the SMC Group?

This morning someone forwarded me the latest press release from Ragan Communications promoting the MyRagan site and yesterday someone forwarded me an email from Ragan promoting their next social media conference. In both cases, Ragan is claiming to be the first. The first social network for PR Professionals, and the first social media conference for PR Professionals. Why isn’t anyone else calling him out for these plain and simple untruths that are clearly indicative of his bravado and boastfulness. Why isn’t anyone pointing out to them that being a MySpace clone is really not all that great a claim? Why are they touting Strumpette’s effuse praise…. in a press release?

Could the real reason that they deleted the Social Media Club group on My Ragan be because they were about to start heavily promoting the site and selling their educational events and did not want to have the largest group on the site be from someone they view as a competitor? Funny thing Mark, you said, and your own Blogger Dave Murray quoted you on this, that you would help me promote the club and our workshop through your site. Mark Ragan said at that time, referring to me and Social Media Club, “I don’t fear you”. How should people interpret your words and actions Mark?

For others who think this is a ‘dustup’ between myself and Mark, you are very mistaken - this is a matter of someone using their power to control the conversation, now employing spin meisters to pull the wool over people’s eyes. This is a matter of transparency, truthiness and trust that is much more important than me or you or even him. This is a question of how we want the world to be, and how we want corporations to communicate with the world - is it going to really be about conversation, or is it going to be about the rouse of conversation as a front for the same old, same old BS.

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Social Media Club No Longer Welcomed at MyRagan

Since I have received a few emails from some members already, let me just say I am disappointed that Mark Ragan has decided to take this action.  I have setup Social Media Club groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning and many other social networking sites, so that members who use those services can come together to further the goals of the club.  Mark invited me to create a group on his “myspace” clone a few weeks ago, and even invited me to promote our Workshop through it.

Since becoming the largest group on MyRagan, Mark has apparently changed his mind, because the group (and my profile) was represented by the Social Media Club logo.  His post to the group (which he deleted after my response to this message) read:

We are recreating the Social Media Club tomorrow and re-naming it to read simply: Social Media Tools and Strategies.

The current logo for the club is giving the impression that we are somehow selling this space to an advertiser.  We are not. These groups are designed as non-commercial places where free discussion can flow without fear of being pitched. 

Your moderator will be Ragan editor Bill Sweetland.

Because we are changing the name of the club, you will all have to join it again. But, as you know, this only takes a few seconds. Look forward to seeing you back here soon.

Mark Ragan
CEO
MyRagan.com

There is more to say about this of course, but for now, just wanted to let you know that if you want to talk more about this, please join the main Social Media Club mailing list or of course, comment here.  I wish I could still have the message I sent in reply to him, but since it was deleted before the conversation could even begin, it is lost. I am sure I was not overly polite in it, but I was definitely speaking to the truth of the situation.  This is apparently not a MySpace clone at all - it now just seems like a social network established for the purpose of selling Ragan rather than serving the interests of the community as he originally told me.
Truth is though, it is his site and his rules so he can do what he wants with it and there is nothing to do about it except leave.  We will simply take our conversation elsewhere and I will move on so we don’t waste anymore energy on such things…

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The Discussion About “Social Media” as a Meme

Once again, the use of the term Social Media is under scrutiny by some of the loudest voices in the blogosphere. Robert Scoble’s post “what is social media” seems to have reignited a thread that Jeremiah Owyang started a couple of weeks ago that I responded to with my post, Is It Really Called Social Media, Yes!. Yes Dare Obasanjo is right, the Social Media entry in Wikipedia is woefully lacking, and there are many other very insightful points to consider in that conversation which point out reasons to be vigilant. Rather than diving in to a tit for tat on everyone’s points which would take me all day, I had a great conversation with Brian Solis this morning about a post he is writing which lead me to write this comment for Robert’s blog, which I decided to post here as well…

Many early adopters are worried that the very idea of authentic human engagement, based on trust and conversations between individual’s via the Internet will be corrupted in the way that the original spirit of netiquette was corrupted by spammers – that real world social problems like greed and predatory behaviour will infect our idealistic utopia, ruining it for everyone. They surely have reason to be concerned, even though they are not being completely practical - nor are many focusing their anger at the right people. As Brian Solis pointed out to me this morning “most of the people that need to hear these things, are not even participants in this conversation, and therein lies the problem.” Worse, those other people will see many of the angriest voices as indicative of a more serious problem with how things are today and won’t ever respond in a way that will let them really understand why it is important.

This is why we need to come together, acting like paramedia, in groups like ours and others with their different and overlapping interests, to illuminate what is right and and to point out what is wrong – to have conversations like this in our global neighborhood around the question of why things are and how we think they should really be. To hold up those who really ‘get it’ as examples to be followed and analyze things like WalMarting Across America for why it is so wrong.

We need not throw out the term Social Media for the mere fact that some people will sour its intention and purpose during the course of socializing the deeper understanding of what is happening and what it means. The worst of the arguments I see against the term is seemingly inspired by a desire to be a part of a select group of early adopters associated with a phrase that is only being used on the edge by the cool kids – ie, our clique has no room for all you ‘squares’. There is much value in this bath water, and I think our baby on this journey across the chasm is called Social Media.

Let’s stand up for what is right about “social media” rather than tearing it down just because a few misguided folks are misappropriating the meme. Better still, let’s not get all caught up in trying to control the message around the phrase – isn’t that part of what many are fighting against anyway – the right of people in the world to choose how they tell the story? Kind of ironic that so many ‘defenders’ of the spirit of what we are doing are in fact engaging with the same controlling mindset as those they are attacking. We can get all caught up in the semantic analysis and attempt to create a taxonomy for “social media” or we can stop trying to control it all and watch what emerges, accelerating the good bits and putting the kebosh on the bad.  The world is often grey and mushy, especially when it comes to emergent memes such as this…

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Cheating on YouTube

This YouTube video documents Time Warner putting up “Superman Returns, The Movie” as a YouTube user, then having >7000 fans in a week. The “fans” are all accounts created the week beforehand. They’re stuffing the ballot box, as it were, to get more visibility for the Superman Returns movie.

To me, this is spamming a Social Media community.

As an organization that is supposed to be discussing the Ethics, among other things, around Social Media, I thought I’d throw this out. Watch the 4 minute video, then Discuss.

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Social Media Club - London Meeting #2

Our good friends over at Fleishman Hillard have opened up their offices again and are hosting the second meeting in London. Come one, come all.

Suggestions have been to discuss the latest in tools, technologies and success stories. However, if there is something specific you would like to throw out onto the table, please place it in the comments below.

Our hope is for each local group to set goals, meet regularly and share opinions on the role of Social Media in the present and future of PR, marketing and journalism. Help us reach that goal in London.

Where: Fleishman Hillard London, 40 Long Acre, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9LG
When: November 15th, from 6pm to 8:30pm
Costs: FREE (we do need you to pre-register so we may prepare for your arrival)

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Consequences for abusing the public trust?

For me the biggest challenge I see in our efforts for dealing with the ethics of disclosure coming out of our Social Media Club Round Table on Wednesday was the matter of consequences for those individuals and organizations who betray our trust so egregiously. Edelman and Wal-Mart both abused the public’s trust in the Web’s ability to be a source for honesty with the Walmarting Across America episode, and we all suffered as a result (we being Bloggers and producers of media - journalists and communications pros alike). I was speaking with Cathy Brooks last night at the VOX Launch Party about this, and she felt that there are indeed consequences in the system of law that governs us that may offer a recourse - but I truly dislike the litigation culture we live in and don’t see that as being the fair route. She had many other important things to say on this, and I for one, am sorry she was not able to make it to our discussion.

In the Edelman matter, we know that Edelman is a leader in the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), and this episode was a clear violation of their own ethics, but Shel Holtz pointed out what does that really mean? In reviewing it closely after reading Shel’s and Stowe Boyd’s post on this WOMMA’s creation of the 20 Questions, I really like a lot of what they have to say on this subject. There are clearly some smart people there that get it. In doing the research, I think that WOMMA’s original Code of Ethics were pretty good to start, and the clarity that these questions bring takes them even further. But “marketer restrain thyself” needs to have consequences when the marketer breaks the rules. So given that that a member of WOMMA has failed to answer so many of those questions in the way we would hope, now what? I suppose it is not retroactive as a community standard though it should be, but seriously, what happens when people show questionable ethical judgment? What are the consequences for abusing the public trust? Obviously the reputation of the individual and the organization is tarnished and there is conceivably a real financial loss of some form, but what consequences are faced by those who break the rules?

I am not out for blood here, far from it, I am ready to move forward. Clearly Edelman has apologized and wants to make good to ensure it never happens again (as much if not more for their own interests of course), but what compensation is due the public? In looking at this the other night in our Round Table on disclosure, that is the point at which I think we are in real need of good solutions. We are trying to figure out the right course of action for Social Media Club members around such ethics violations, but we are not the Senate, so censure seems a bit odd as a consequence. I know from my friend Todd Tweedy’s experience that WOMMA does expel/suspend members for violations of its code of ethics - in that case the entire story was false and was the subject of a correction/retraction of the charge by the reporter. Todd adds an excellent perspective with his blog post today entitled Prediction: Edelman Will Make Us Stronger in Terms of Blogging and Corporate Ethics. It would seem that WOMMA’s course of action should be clear, but there are seemingly some gray areas we don’t know about but, deserve to know clearly.

Mike Arrington suggested the other night that we simply do not link to those who have a verified ethics violation. Indeed all of this attention on the issue is actually driving up the perceived popularity and awareness of those who made the mistake. There is a great discussion going on over on the WOMMA site about disclosure, and I am curiously watching for the outcome. In that one of the big issues coming out of our discussion was a need for a well educated public in regards to media literacy (that is one of the core elements of Social Media Club), perhaps they could fund some 3rd party programs to promote media literacy and use the Walmarting Across America case as an example of things that people should not do (after all, it was not the entire Edelman organization who did this, but rather some actual people inside the company). I am not to say that the company is not ultimately to blame, but seriously - it was some human beings bad judgment that is the point of fault.

Maybe even some public service work and some genuine apologies from the people who screwed this up. As Rafe Needleman said at the Round Table the other night, (paraphrasing) “if you have a car accident, most people are unable to apologize because of the fear of litigation that may result, but if more people did apologize and show remorse, there would be a lot less litigation around accidents.” Not surprisingly, I agree with Todd Defren and am reminded of the book “All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten“. Or the more advanced version that I believe is the core of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz which starts off with the most important principle of all:

“Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.”

Technorati Chairman Peter Hirshberg assured me that this was his philosophy on this matter last night and everyone else I spoke with seems to feel the same thing, so should be near universal consensus here, but what do we do when people aren’t impeccable with their word? What about those gray areas that we talked about the other night?

[The audio from the Round Table will be up shortly]

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NMRCast #9

Chris Heuer, Brian Solis and Shel Holtz* discuss Edelman’s woes and the notion of disclosure; they also catch up on the working group progress and chat a bit more about tags (can you ever get enough?).

Shel Holtz provides a list of links supporting this podcast on his website, For Immediate Release.

You can download the file here (MP3, 12.7MB), or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and future shows automatically. (For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a podcatcher such as Juice, DopplerRadio, iTunes or Yahoo! Podcasts, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon). Also, the Apple iTunes subscription is now available here or by searching for NMRCast at the Apple iTunes store under “podcasts.” If you subscribe to the FIR “everything” feed, however, this podcast will not be included.

* Tom Foremski is currently in India and was not able to attend.

UPDATE: I had orignally titled this post ‘NMRCast #9: Disclose. Disclose. Disclose.’.  I realized this did not truly cover the content of this podcast, so I have changed the title to simply NMRCast #9.

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Talking About Disclosure - A Social Media Club Roundtable

I think about disclosure or talk about it with someone almost every day. Often it is in regards to whether or not I am able to disclose something because it has to do with advice I am giving clients, which happens all the time if you write about the field in which you work. If I am able to do so, then the question becomes whether I should write about it. Rather than just thinking about it on my own, I thought it best to organize a conversation among those who care about this issue here in San Francisco and put together a last minute Social Media Club roundtable at CNet’s headquarters for Wednesday October 25, 2006 from 6:00-8:00 PM. Thanks to Joel Sacks for helping secure the space at the last minute. While it will probably be a small turnout, it looks like it will be a great bunch of people who will have a lot to say on this subject.

The issue of disclosure came to the forefront recently with the Edelman problems with the Wal-Marting Across America blog and then two other ‘flogs’ that were being written by Edelman employees. The thing is, I did not want people to think I am just calling out the utter failure of the Social Media consultants at Edelman to do the right thing because I work as an independent contractor with Fleishman Hillard, a competing PR agency who used to do Wal-Mart work (I was never involved with that account). Look how much text I had to use to disclose that one portion of my interest in it. Then consider the 20 or so minutes I have spent editing that disclosure to make sure it sounded right, addressed the important points and fit into the story. I have a lot to say on the Edelman story, but so much else has already been said. I think I will be talking about it for a long time to come, because their failure to be transparent and authentic is a huge lesson for corporations which hopefully won’t be repeated, but most likely will.

My newfound emphasis on the topic of disclosure, however, came from my friend Mike Arrington’s little dustup with traditional journalists at the Online News Association conference which Jeff Jarvis writes about here and Mike writes about here. The subsequent post by Nicholas Carr called ‘A glass house‘ really struck a deep chord with me. I know Mike and I don’t believe he is purposely trying to deceive anyone, but he does have a competitive streak and many other interests across the Web 2.0 landscape which puts him in a precarious position. From my discussions with many people, there are no truly easy ways to make disclosures and there is no standard accepted practices for how to disclose and when to disclose. As I have consulted my clients over the years, it is often the perception of impropriety that is the problem not the actions themselves.

In speaking with Scott Rafer last week at the Dogster party, he reminded me of another important bit - sometimes there are interests that people can not disclose because they are not allowed to talk about the relationship they have for legal or other security reasons. To his point, it is indeed a very gray area which needs some more light shed on it for everyone of us to understand better. It is also, as my friend and colleague Stowe Boyd has pointed out previously, a problem in dire need of a solution.

This is why I immediately resolved to do something about it and began to organize a Social Media Club Roundtable for Wednesday October 25 called “Talking About Disclosure.” What I hope we get from the event is a great discussion about the best practices around disclosure of interests in pursuit of a common understanding of how to properly apply the principles of transparency and authenticity. The conversation has already begun, with great articles written by Jason Calcanis (older but relevant post), Shel Holtz, Matthew Ingram and Todd Defren. We want to bring that conversation into real time, with a focus on the solution. Also, we want to move from conversation to action, so we are hoping that we can produce a set of guidelines to recommend as best practices for people to use, which will ultimately be a part of the pledge we ask members to make when joining Social Media Club. We also will address WOMMA’s lack of action on the Edelman fiasco which is a point Shel Holtz makes in his post - though I don’t know what we can do differently.

Lisa Stone brought our attention to a post by a former Edelman employee on Blogher at our workshop yesterday in which Lisa points out some of the key requirements around disclosure that need to be addressed by a blogger.

What kind of commitment should bloggers make to their readers? I’m one of the people who thinks every blog owes its readers four answers, whether the blog is a corporate blog, a news blog or a personal diary:

1. Who are the bloggers?
2. What are the bloggers doing?
3. Why are the bloggers doing this?
4. Why do I — the reader — care?

The Wal-Mart blog flunks every question:

Finally, in the pursuit of full disclosure (which may come back to bite me in the ass for doing so too early), we have begun to work on a new service called Disclosr which will simplify the process of making disclosures for professionals who produce Social Media. The service will be available for free for all Professional members of Social Media Club and for a nominal subscription fee for non members. It will leverage the understanding we jointly develop of best practices for disclosure at the heart of the service. That still won’t cover all the gray areas that Scott Rafer pointed out last week, but it will get us further than not doing anything. There probably is not enough money in that business to be a really profitable standalone business, but as a public benefit that furthers the advancement of Social Media, it fits perfectly with our mission of supporting ethics.

In the end it comes down to the same thing I have been telling publishers and broadcasters for the past 12 years - don’t ever squander the trust you have with your audience by not being completely truthful. The public (aka audience) will revolt if you do and they will speak up and call you on it. Even though there are a number of assholes in the world with their personal axes to grind who may attack for the sake of being able to do so, most people won’t buy into that crap - particularly if you have continuously proven your trustworthiness over time while building a great relationship with your audience.

If Mike Arrington does have a conflict of interest, whether real or perceived, it is usually revealed by comment #5. The difference between Blogging and traditional journalism is that Mike then engages in real conversations to explain why the commenter may be wrong and admits when they are right, making a correction or clarifying the original statement. This is what often happens when having a conversation with real people - the story is much bigger than we are able to get across in the time we have to speak, so it sometimes takes a few rounds of back and forth to get to all the important points. I am not an apologist for Mike, he can handle that himself quite well, I am just trying to point out that Blogging and other forms of Social Media is conversational and there is more to it than just perceiving someone has evil intentions.

Wheww, I actually have left out many other important points that are worthy of discussion and will bring up when we get together tomorrow. I am sure you could probably add a few dozen more, particularly when we get to talking about real world situations. So please add to the conversation here in the comments and join us at CNet’s Headquarters in San Francisco on Wednesday October 25, 2006 from 6-8pm. Please do RSVP on Upcoming so I know how much soda and beer we need to bring to keep the conversation flowing…

PS - I had been speaking with Mike Arrington about participating, and he agreed to do so - in addition to inviting other journalists and interested parties. After waiting for over a week for him to respond to my emails, voicemails and text messages after initially saying yes and being enthusiastic, it doesn’t look like he is coming. Or then again, perhaps one of his readers or other friends will point it out and he may write a post on Crunchnotes.

[10/25 update - Mike Arrington was sick and dealing with the financing on Edegeio which is why I did not hear back from him - he actually saw the post himself and was kind enough to write up something this afternoon on TechCrunch and will hopefully be joining us this evening.]

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