"We'd like to write blog posts, but don't have time."
That's the oft-heard lament in newsrooms. More and more traditional journalists recognize the benefits of blogging and social media, but many just can't figure out how to add them to their existing workload.
I have a solution that seems to work in our newsroom. When faced with this issue, I recommend colleagues do everything they usually do, such as have brainstorming sessions, take part in editorial meetings, do research and collect web links -- except now they should do it publicly.
So now, for example, brainstorming can be done with a wiki-like tool, and notes from a meeting or background research can become a blog post. Instead of saving bookmarks as private "favorites" in a web browser, you can publish them as social bookmarks. Ideas and discussions can be expressed as blog posts or as status updates on social networks.
I call this approach "live-streaming the newsroom." It was the subject of a three-day workshop I recently gave in Moscow. I was brought there by two Russian media NGOs: Eurasia-Media, the media training department of the New Eurasia Foundation, and the Foundation for Independent Radio Broadcasting (FNR).
Below is an overview of the tools we used and discussed during the workshop. We also put them into use to cover the "end of the line" of several Moscow subway lines (an approach that was inspired by a project by The New York Times).
Tools for (Almost) Instantaneous Blogging
Mindmaps In preparing the project, I published a MindMeister mindmap that charted out various social media tools. The map was published as an open wiki, and, as a result, people have added useful information. My colleague and co-organizer Charles Maynes at FNR also translated some key nodes into Russian. For the Moscow subway project, we made yet another mindmap.
Posterous/Tumblr Between classic blogging and micro-blogging services such as Twitter, there are new possibilities that allow for rapid blogging in short or long formats that also incorporate multimedia. We used "Posterous"http://www.Posterous.com, though we also could have used Tumblr. These platforms enable bloggers to post using email. Simply attach pictures, audio files or a link to YouTube, and Posterous integrates it all into a post. Here's how we used it on our workshop blog, newsroomru.
RSS Reader While preparing the workshop -- and during the workshop -- I used Google Reader as a feed reader and Diigo as social bookmark platform. I like the fact that Diigo enables you to create public or private groups. Have a look at the MixedRealities group.
Twitter During the event, I commented on the workshop using Twitter. I used the hashtags #newsroom and #newsroomru.
Photo/Video SharingFlickr is extremely useful for various reasons: You can select the appropriate Creative Commons license for re-publishing pictures, and publishing pictures on Flickr can also attract new visitors to your site or blog. For video, we used YouTube. We shot using semi-professional videocameras as well as the Flip video camera, which enables fast and easy recording, editing and publishing.
Audio Sharing Are your colleagues still hesitant to write their own blog posts? Talk to them and record your conversation using AudioBoo (using either a laptop or an iPhone), and publish the result instantaneously via Posterous.
Chats Why not discuss coverage, or even the preparation of coverage, in a moderated chat session? We tried out CoverItLive on the workshop blog (on Posterous) and it worked perfectly. Within the CoverItLive interface, you can integrate streaming video (I showed Ustream), Twitter feeds and Twitter lists.
Twitter I think it's essential to recontextualize services like Twitter. For example, try curating with Twitter by using lists. Posterous can also be recontextualized by easily integrating into some of the major blogging platforms. Diigo, Twitter, Flickr etc can also be aggregated in a FriendFeed stream, which one can embed easily on a site or blog. No scripting knowledge required...
Community We also thought about how to keep in contact after the workshop ends and the participating journalists go home. Then there's the larger question of how to set up a platform for your media community. We used Ning to create the newsroomru group. Maybe we'll also use Second Life for synchronous immersive encounters in the future. (I also briefly demonstrated Second Life, which recently made it much easier to integrate web content.)
Mindset
All the above mentioned tools only become game changers in the newsroom if journalists stop thinking that they should only publish a nearly perfect, finished product. Newsgathering is an ongoing process. It's great to publish perfectly crafted articles, videos and audio -- but this should not stop us from streaming the production process.
It will, of course, be difficult to do this for some investigative work; but I think many projects can benefit from bringing your community into the brainstorming phase. It hardly takes any time at all.
Most of the things a journalist does to cover his or her beat can be live-streamed using the above mentioned tools, among many others. The value is that the audience will give you helpful suggestions, and practicing transparency will lead to increased credibility.
*****
How do you integrate social media into the workflow of the newsroom? Which other tools would you use? And don't forget that you can still add to our social media mindmap wiki!
Roland Legrand is in charge of Internet and new media at Mediafin, the publisher of leading Belgian business newspapers De Tijd and L'Echo. He studied applied economics and philosophy. After a brief teaching experience, he became a financial journalist working for the Belgian wire service Belga and subsequently for Mediafin. He works in Brussels, and lives in Antwerp with his wife Liesbeth.
Last month, Jessica Clark and I explored how various Public Media 2.0 projects are measuring their level of success in informing and engaging publics. We found that many public media organizations are struggling to measure impact -- and some are relying only on traditional indicators of reach, as opposed to other elements of impact such as relevance, inclusion, engagement or influence. Some projects, however, are taking a more holistic approach that is matched closely to their mission.
The international human rights group Witness, which provides training, support and visibility for local groups producing documentaries about human rights issues, has created a Performance Dashboard that tracks more than just the number of viewers. Using "at a glance" metrics, descriptive analysis and direct feedback from participants, the Performance Dashboard provides a concise overview of impact.
It combines traditional metrics -- such as sales and licensing numbers, email subscriptions, blog statistics -- with more nuanced data, including a timeline indicating progress of core partnerships. These reports are published twice per year on the Witness website, and they are made available to other organizations under a Creative Commons license.
Videos With a Purpose
Witness is able to efficiently track progress in large part because they begin each media project with clear advocacy goals. According to Sam Gregory, Witness's program director, all work "springs out of an advocacy strategy." He said Witness is focused on "making videos for a purpose as opposed to making videos about an issue."
Each video project starts with the completion of a Video Action Plan, which encourages partners to think purposefully about intended impact, avenues for action, and measures of success.
Some of these measures of success are particularly striking. For example, Witness worked with the Centre for Minority Rights Development (CEMIRIDE), a human rights organization, to create a film about the displaced Endorois community in Kenya. The film ended up being presented as evidence in a landmark case in which the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights ruled in favor of the Endorois community. Last month, the African Union, the highest legal authority in Africa, ruled in favor of the earlier decision and ordered the Kenyan government to provide the Endorois with compensation and reinstate their land.
While a direct causal link can be difficult to prove, clearly this film did its job. In a case such as this, the element of impact that is most important is influence, not reach. Gregory explained that even if only a few people saw the film, the film achieved its desired impact because they were the people with the power to decide the case.
New Focus: User-Generated Video
Witness hopes to broaden its impact with a new strategic vision that addresses the exponential growth in user-generated video. The organization is focusing on how user-generated video can be used by human rights advocates. (MediaShift reported on the organization's earlier experiments with viral video in 2006.) Witness currently trains about 500 people in human rights filmmaking across the globe per year, and recognizes the need to shift to a more scalable training approach. One of the ways that Witness will make this shift is by developing shared virtual spaces for fostering discussion on what works and what doesn't.
Yvette J. Alberdingk Thijm, Witness's executive director, explained the strategy in a blog post:
Right now and right here Witness, with your help, can exponentially expand its impact. But the demand for our services is far greater than our capacity. Witness's New Strategic Vision is designed to scale our impact. So beginning in 2010, in addition to continuing to train and support individual grassroots organizations, Witness will forge relationships among organizations and networks, creating a broader, more interconnected global human rights community. By doing this, we'll play a seminal role in forging coalitions that seek shared goals, with video emerging as the common language across all types of borders. In addition, we will scale our work by creating video toolkits and other web tools that facilitate knowledge sharing.
With the new focus on networked campaigns, in some ways, impact will become more difficult for Witness to track. What is the most effective way to measure impact when the media in question spans across so many different modes, timeframes, countries and (sometimes overlapping) networks?
In the future, Witness will likely spend more energy tracking the connections that form within and among networks. The Witness team is currently working through the process of adding new categories to the current Performance Dashboard.
The dashboard offers a great model for other media projects. But it's also clear that projects without similar, specific advocacy goals will likely have a harder time making use of the tool. Outlets and creators with more neutral goals of spurring discussion or raising awareness may have to turn to some of the existing impact assessment toolkits -- or perhaps even develop their own.
Public media workers and aficionados have a new routine: Every Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, they log on to Twitter for Public Media Chat, which is using the #pubmedia hashtag.
The chat, which started about a month ago, is the result of a discussion between a group of public media professionals at PublicMediaCamp in Washington, DC.
"Public Media Chat is something of a passion project for me; for some time now I've recognized the need among people who work in public media organizations to have a way to learn, share, and collaborate with each other," said Jonathan Coffman, a PBS product manager, in an email. "Twitter presents an interesting new way of doing that."
Coffman said a "lively discussion" on -- where else? -- Twitter made him take steps to start building a community and recruit participants. The first chat was held in February.
Coffman worked with Adam Schweigert, new media director at WFIU Public Radio and WTIU Public Television in Bloomington, Indiana, and John Proffitt, who recently started working as the director of digital engagement at KETC in St. Louis, among others, to get the chat off the ground. Their goal? According to Public Media Chat's website, it's three-fold: increase the conversation among public purpose media professionals and supporters; provide a forum for them to come together and collaborate; and test whether such collaborative efforts are worthy of additional investment.
Boosting Collaboration
"Honestly, the biggest issue we [in public media] have, and one that I hope we're addressing, is our lack of collaboration," Schweigert said. "Public broadcasting organizations have historically not been very good at working together, and even worse at working with media producers/organizations from outside the NPR/PBS networks."
MediaShift contributor Jessica Clark, who directs the Future of Public Media Project at American University, said, "A lot of public broadcasters are making the transition into social media with no real sense of how it relates to their old skills and practices, and how it might actually serve publics."
Clark said the chat can offer "support, inspiration, and nuts-and-bolts advice."
Chat organizers said previous efforts to foster non-competitive collaboration among public media professionals have failed. Clark said these efforts failed because, in part, "public broadcasters often operate in silos -- i.e., only talking to other radio or TV producers, or only talking within their own industry as opposed to taking a wider view."
Hosts believe that Twitter can help foster a better dialogue.
"Twitter is easy, cheap and platform-agnostic -- anyone who wants to participate in the #pubmedia chat can," Clark said. "It strips down the professional barriers and doesn't require a huge time investment."
Breaking 140 Character Limit
But Twitter also has it limits -- a point raised during Monday's discussion. Chris Beer, a web developer with WGBH Interactive, created a Google group in response to some comments about the need to have a discussion without a 140 character limit.
"I'm not particularly attached to the idea of a Google Group or a listserv, I just see a need for more collaboration outside of Monday at 8," Beer said. "Twitter is a fine medium for getting people talking, but I find it difficult to have a conversation, and I hope something like this can supplement the #pubmedia chat. I haven't found a place within public media to ask very practical questions around public media projects. Because setting something up takes all of five minutes, it seems silly not to experiment."
Coffman also points out that, although it is easy to organize on Twitter, the hosts still need to reach out to a lot of people in the field for the chat to have ongoing success.
"The participants in Public Media Chat right now are the early adopter[s] and the big thinkers," Coffman said. "In short order, myself and the other hosts are going to need to start pushing the community to become evangelists and help to spread the movement."
For last Monday's chat, @pubmedia posed four questions and one follow-up to spark conversation. The first question dealt with collaboration. The different responses prompted a follow-up question: "Would you rather collaborate by issues (politics, arts) or job function (tech, journalism, development)?"
The second question asked: "Who does #pubmedia need to listen to? If you could bring one visionary to your station/org who would it be?" It prompted several responses, including what was perhaps the most retweeted response of the night from @eric_adler, who wrote: #pubmedia needs to listen to the public. The next question asked chat participants to name their "last great" public media program, and the final question of the night asked for suggestions for future chat hosts.
Top 10 Tweets
You can find raw tweets from the discussion at #pubmedia or look for a roundup on the chat's website. Below are ten of the more notable tweets from Monday night. (Some @replies and hashtags have been edited out.)
annieshreff I want to get an interactive team to bring reporting from underserved communities to listening audiences. Food/school all good
publicmediagirl Collaboration requires building relationships, not just tools
jdcoffman #pubmedia needs the passion of @garyvee, with the entrepreneurship of @guykawasaki, and the evangelism of @scobleizer
juliaschrenker #pubmedia could benefit from listening to both upstarts and print - often we're between them, with startup challenges + legacy issues
johntynan Terry Gross interview with William Hurt. Him telling how he was held at knifepoint during a film. The Story Telling!
ssgowans What was the last great #pubmedia program you watched? Why was it memorable? The War, because it wasn't about celebrities
publicmediagirl #pubmedia Q3 Am I the only one so far to mention a TV show? What does this say??
SnarkyJones I want public media that goes back to its non-commercial roots. Kids programs have SO MUCH sponsor messaging #pubmedia
johntynan: #pubmedia Q4: Kinsey Wilson from NPR
mediatwit Q4: Y'all are too kind. Happy to guest host w/ or w/o Conan.
Get Involved
> To participate in future #pubmedia chats, be sure to go onto Twitter on Monday at 8 pm Eastern Time, and do a search for #pubmedia.
> Have your say by writing tweets during the time of chats with the #pubmedia hashtag.
> Check out the PubMediaChat site for roundups of recent discussions.
> Follow the @PubMedia Twitter feed to get updates and alerts on chats.
A writer, reporter and media consultant, Jaclyn Schiff is up at the crack of dawn to tackle the headlines of the day for her job at the non-profit Kaiser Health News. When she should be catching up on sleep, she can usually be found updating her Twitter feed or Tumblr blog, MEDIA Schiff (pun intended). Schiff covers non-profit news for MediaShift.
The Turkish courts banned YouTube in May 2008, and now a new protest campaign launched by the editorial team of the Milliyet newspaper is drawing attention to how long the country has been prevented from using the website.
The initiative, which was was launched on February 19, is not the first campaign of this type. But it's notable because previous protests came from the blogosphere and, as a result, did not receive international coverage. The current ban is the fourth such action by the Turkish courts since 2007; hopefully, this campaign will draw attention to this policy of censorship.
WSJ Piece Sparks Outcry
The editors of Milliyet were inspired to act by a February 16 piece in the Wall Street Journal by David Keyes, a founding member of Cyberdissidents.org. Keyes wrote that "there is nothing European, let alone cultural, about prohibiting citizens from viewing YouTube. Turkey's status as the 2010 European 'Capital of Culture' should be suspended until this ban is repealed."
The article received significant pick-up in the Turkish press. A columnist at Haberturk, a national daily, commented that the ban and the resulting situation were an embarrassment. The ban of YouTube was issued on May 5, 2008, by three Ankara magistrate courts who ruled that YouTube had not acquired a certificate of authorization to operate in the country. The columnist at Haberturk wrote that the minister of transportation should do everything in his power to change the relevant law, and then ask YouTube to pay taxes.
In announcing the protest campaign, Milliyet columnist Mehve? Emin said:
Everybody has changed their DNS settings and can access YouTube, just like the Prime Minister does and has said he does. This is why people have become insensitive about this ban. But YouTube is still blocked in Turkey and this affects Turkey's image negatively and this issue needs to be resolved. So as the editorial team of Milliyet Cadde, we agreed to show everyday how many days have passed since the ban.
We as Turkish technology journalists have stressed the importance of a free Internet over and over again. Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review did a remarkable job by documenting non-censored computers for the use of the IMF and World Bank delegations during their summit this summer. We said it was not a clever move to try to hide something you are ashamed of, especially if the rest of the world knows about it. The fact that Iran is on the same level as Turkey in terms of free Internet is a shame on the politicians of a free, democratic society. Just as Iran, Turkey would like to create a national search engine and a national Internet, which is an oxymoron to many.
In Turkey, law No. 5651, "On the fight against online crime," allows a prosecutor to ban access to any website that incites suicide, pedophilia or drug use, or that defames Kemal Atatürk. During 2008, ten web sites, including YouTube, Dailymotion and Google Groups, were blocked by court decisions. Clearly, this law is being applied indiscriminately and as a tool to suppress free speech.
"In its current form, Law 5651, commonly known as the Internet Law of Turkey, not only limits freedom of expression, but severely restricts citizens' right to access information," said Milos Haraszti, media freedom monitor for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), in a January Reuters story.
He said that Turkey, a European Union candidate, was blocking access to 3,700 Internet sites because Ankara's Internet law was "too broad and too subject to political interests."
Turkish newspapers also reported that in April 2009 the army sorted 292 Turkish-language websites and 138 foreign-language sites into categories such as "separatist," "in favour of the EU," "Islamist." The list included a number of human rights websites, as well as newspapers such as The Independent and the New York Times.
The question now is whether Turkey's online censorship will land it on the list of "Internet Enemies" that we at Reporters Without Borders will publish this Friday -- and how its Internet policies will impact its EU membership.
Clothilde Le Coz has been working for Reporters Without Borders in Paris since 2007. She is now the Washington director for this organization, helping to promote press freedom and free speech around the world. In Paris, she was in charge of the Internet Freedom desk and worked especially on China, Iran, Egypt and Thailand. During the time she spent in Paris, she was also updating the "Handbook for Bloggers and Cyberdissidents," published in 2005. Her role is now to get the message out for readers and politicians to be aware of the constant threat journalists are submitted to in many countries.
They know where you sleep, and now they know where you get coffee.
That was the message driven home by the recently created website PleaseRobMe.com. The site aggregates Twitter posts sent when a person uses Foursquare to check in at a location -- meaning they're basically telling the world that they're not at home at the moment.
The site is a commentary on the downside of overusing location-based services like Foursquare and Loopt. These services allow users to "check-in" at different locations around the globe using smartphones or laptops. Once checked-in, a user can choose to publicly share where they happen to be by using services like Twitter.
"The site allows people to meet and is a way to find out what is going on in your area,"
said Dennis Crowley, CEO and co-founder of Foursquare. Recently, Crowley checked-in at an airport and was surprised to discover a friend he hadn't seen in months was just two terminals away. "That's the benefit," Crowley said.
While one of PleaseRobMe's founders insists the site is not really an attempt to aid cat burglars, it could be just one step away from walking outside the First Amendment's protection of free speech.
Is PleaseRobMe Aiding Burglars?
While the First Amendment's guarantee that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech" seems absolute, not every form of speech is guarded by the Constitution. Rather, the Supreme Court has held that some forms of speech are not entitled to full protection.
According to several lower courts, speech that aids and abets illegal acts are not shielded by the First Amendment. So, if a website were to aid in the commission of a crime and was sued for its part in the offense, the First Amendment would not offer the publisher any protection.
In an influential Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals case, Rice v. Paladin Enterprises, Paladin published a book titled, "Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors." The book provided "detailed instructions about how to...execute and cover up a murder." In 1993, a man named James Perry followed the author's instructions, killing three people. Subsequently, relatives of the deceased successfully sued Paladin for aiding Perry in the murders.
The Fourth Circuit stated that in order to charge a publisher with aiding and abetting a crime, the publisher must intend for people to use the article to commit an illegal act. In coming to its decision, the court noted that Paladin's book was "so comprehensive and detailed that it is as if the [author] were literally present with the would-be murderer" during the crime.
The founders of PleaseRobMe have consistently stated that they do not want people to use the site to rob a house. Instead, the site is a commentary on the amount of personal information people are making publicly available. In fact, a burglar would have a difficult time using PleaseRobMe to commit a crime, since the site does not provide anyone's home address unless it too has been posted to Twitter.
Section 230 Defense
Be that as it may, PleaseRobMe begs a particularly important question. What if someone designed a site that was intended, and could be used, to aid burglars using publicly available information? Could they be sued after someone's house was robbed?
While such a site may lack constitutional protection since its intended use would be to aid the commission of a crime, it could be protected by Congress. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gives immunity to any "interactive computer service," such as a website, against civil lawsuits (but not criminal sanctions) that arise from third party publications.
Section 230 was passed in 1996, just as the Internet was just beginning to make headway with the American public. As many courts have stated, the history behind Section 230 made it clear that Congress did not want websites to be liable for the statements of others. The legislature felt that imposing such a burden would hamper the Internet's development.
Normally, Section 230 is invoked when a website is sued for publishing a defamatory statement that was written by a guest poster or independent commenter. In these cases, "Section 230 is often considered to be a very strong protection against defamation suits," said Robert Richards, co-founder of the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment.
The question currently facing courts is how far to "define the bounds of Section 230 immunity," Richards said.
Although Section 230 is often applied to defamation lawsuits, it has also been employed in invasion of privacy, negligence and misappropriation claims. As a result of this expansion, it is not unthinkable that a court would extend Section 230 to protect a website against civil claims of aiding and abetting a burglary.
Of course, there is a question of whether such a website could be understood as merely facilitating third party publications. Nonetheless, in the wake of the PleaseRobMe controversy, the legal question posed here seems relevant, and is far from answered.
Do Location-Based Services Invade Privacy?
As location-based networks become more popular, the risk of sharing sensitive information increases as well. Though many lament the fact that so much personal information is available online, Foursquare's Crowley said his service isn't invasive.
"We've been working on the project since 2001 and have checked in almost every day for the last 10 years, and the only bad thing that's happened is an ex-girlfriend will sometimes show up where I am," Crowley said.
He emphatically noted that "Foursquare is not tracking you. You have to check in and voluntarily choose to make your location publicly available."
"At the end of the day, you have to be aware of what you're doing online and the consequences of your acts," said Kurt Opsahl, senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It's a matter of expectations. People want to tell their friends where they are,but, as PleaseRobMe points out, other actors may see personal information as well."
Although Foursquare users must volunteer to divulge their whereabouts with the general public, the site's editors may share some information with local businesses when offering various promotions, according to Foursquare's privacy policy.
This has caught the attention of Congress, which is set to hold a hearing titled, "The Collection and Use of Location Information for Commercial Purposes." The hearing will discuss the privacy concerns that have arisen due to location-based services.
"The key issue with these types of sites is disclosure. If people are agreeing that information can be shared in this manner, then that's a service that a company can provide," said Opsahl.
While the notion of sharing personal information with businesses may make some people uneasy, there are potential benefits. For instance, Foursquare's "mayor" promotion offers free products to the user who checks in at a location the most often.
"In Texas, there is a restaurant that will give away a free steak dinner to the person who checks in the most," Crowley said.
Rob Arcamona is a second-year law student at the George Washington University Law School. Prior to attending law school, Rob worked at the Student Press Law Center and also helped establish ComRadio, the Pennsylvania State University's student-run Internet-based radio station. He writes the Protecting the Source blog.
This episode of 4MR is brought to you by GoDaddy, helping you set up your own website in a snap with domain name registration, web hosting and 24/7 support. Visit GoDaddy to learn more.
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the recent move by Viacom to pull "The Daily Show" and "Colbert Report" from Hulu, and run them on their own sites. Plus, the Financial Times said it would start charging for day passes and weekly passes to augment its metered pay system online. And I asked Just One Question to PEJ's Tom Rosenstiel about their recent report on the interactive news consumer.
Also, be sure to vote in our poll about how you plan to experience the Oscars:
Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit.
This episode of 4MR is brought to you by GoDaddy, helping you set up your own website in a snap with domain name registration, web hosting and 24/7 support. Visit GoDaddy to learn more.
The biggest night in movies is two days away, and everyone has an opinion as to who will win an Oscar. While there isn't a proven formula that can tell us which film is going to win, a closer look at social media such as blogs and Twitter can provide some interesting perspective as to which nominees are dominating conversations and spurring emotional reactions.
Here's a look at the favorite contenders, as determined by social media chatter.
What the Blogs Are Saying
Sysomos, a social media analytics firm, today unveiled an updated buzz chart for the 10 Best Picture nominees. The chart outlines which films captured the most attention and generated positive buzz -- two potential indicators of Oscar destiny -- on blogs over the past month. The blogosphere was measured based on share of voice (percentage of overall conversation) and sentiment (percentage of favorability).
According to Sysomos's findings, "Avatar" leads the conversation with 25.6 percent of blogger attention (share of voice), while "The Hurt Locker" was second with 18.1 percent. Based on this assessment, "Avatar" is the favorite to win Best Picture.
I asked Sysomos to apply the same blog research to three other Oscar categories: Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Director. To keep the searches relevant, Sysomos narrowed the queries to include the name of the actor, actress or director and "oscar" or "oscars" and "academy awards."
According to the share of voice analysis, Jeff Bridges ("Crazy Heart"), Sandra Bullock ("The Blind Side") and James Cameron ("Avatar") look like good bets to win in their respective categories. The sentimental favorites are Colin Firth ("A Serious Man"), Carey Mulligan ("An Education") and Lee Daniels ("Precious").
Best Actor
Share of Voice Rankings:
1) Jeff Bridges (25%)
2) George Clooney (24.4%)
3) Colin Firth (18.2%)
Sentiment Rankings:
1) Colin Firth (62%)
2) George Clooney (58%)
3) Morgan Freeman (57%)
Best Actress
Share of Voice Rankings:
1) Sandra Bullock (28.2%)
2) Carey Mulligan (22.2%)
3) Meryl Streep (20.8%)
Sentiment Rankings:
1) Carey Mulligan (63%)
2) Meryl Streep (57%)
3) Gabourey Sidibe (57%)
Best Director
Share of Voice Rankings:
1) James Cameron (33.8%)
2) Kathryn Bigelow (24.9%)
3) Quentin Tarantino (16.3%)
Sentiment Rankings:
1) Lee Daniels (68%)
2) Jason Reitman (62%)
3) Quentin Tarantino (56%)
Talk of the Town on Twitter
In Hollywood, it's not always good to be the talk of the town (see the controversial news that broke about "The Hurt Locker"). On Twitter, the talk is real-time and runs the gamut from great to good to bad to downright nasty. So while a high number of Twitter mentions might signal heightened interest in a nominee's performance, it doesn't necessarily mean they're gathering support.
The nominees who have the largest share of voice on blogs over the past month were also talked about the most on Twitter. Sandra Bullock has the most Twitter mentions (8,732), followed by James Cameron (6,176) and Jeff Bridges (5,785). In addition, the sentimental favorites on Twitter reflect the same emotions of the blogosphere, as tweets around Colin Firth (second), Carey Mulligan (second) and Lee Daniels (fourth) are highly positive, yet trail the category leaders in overall quantity.
Twitter Rankings (past 30 days)
Best Actor
1) Jeff Bridges (5,785)
2) Colin Firth (1,886) - positive sentiment leader with 61%
1) James Cameron (6,176)
2) Kathryn Bigelow (2,982)
3) Quentin Tarantino (1,100)
4) Lee Daniels (971) - positive sentiment leader with 69%
5) Jason Reitman (633)
Will Social Media Predict the Winners?
Now that we know the names and films dominating the discussion on blogs and Twitter, it's simply a matter of sitting back and watching the show on Sunday. Then we'll have a sense of whether our collective sentiment is also interesting science.
Update March 9, 2010: Now that Oscar statues have been distributed, let's revisit the pre-show social media buzz and see if the names called at the Kodak Theatre matched the names most frequently discussed on blogs and Twitter.
The Accurate Buzz: Best Actor and Best Actress
Jeff Bridges ("A Crazy Heart") and Sandra Bullock ("The Blind Side") led the share-of-voice category on blogs and were mentioned the most times on Twitter. Both walked away from the Academy Awards as first-time winners for their leading roles. The movie industry and the media that follow it all were bullish on Bullock and Bridges to win Oscars, and both won Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards for Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role.
Bridges edged out Clooney in share of voice by only 0.6% in the past month, but Clooney arguably has dominant share-of-mind as an actor in the mainstream media. I suspect a longer historical comparison between the two would reveal a substantial lead for Clooney on blogs and Twitter. The heightened buzz on Bridges and his lead over Clooney signaled an abnormal interest in his performance and the potential to win an Oscar.
The Inaccurate Insights: Best Picture and Best Director
The biggest box office movie of all time naturally had the greatest share of voice on blogs. However, "Avatar" did not win Best Picture and James Cameron's quest for a second win as Best Director fell short (he won for "Titanic" in 1997). "The Hurt Locker" won six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Kathryn Bigelow, while "Avatar" captured three Oscars (Art Direction, Cinematography and Visual Effects).
To many critics and insiders, "The Hurt Locker" was expected to win due to its awards show momentum. The best predictor of Best Director continues to be the Director's Guild of America (DGA) Awards, which gave Kathryn Bigelow its highest honor this year. As the DGA notes on its website (www.dga.org), "Only six times since the DGA Award's inception in 1948 has the winner not gone on to receive the Academy Award for Best Director."
Lesson from Oscar Chatter
This leaves us with our initial question: Can social media chatter predict Oscar winners? The answer is an unequivocal "not sure." Pending further human analysis of the blog and Twitter mentions, we can't support or refute the correlation between level of buzz and likelihood of awards. Unlike the near-certainty of a DGA Award recipient going on to receive an Oscar statue, the social media chart toppers largely reflect our pop culture and peer influences.
*****
Did you find yourself mentioning the favored Oscar winners (Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock and "The Hurt Locker") on blogs and Twitter prior to the show? Do you think social media can help predict the winners? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Nick Mendoza is the director of digital communications at Zeno Group. He advises consumer, entertainment and web companies on digital strategy, distribution and engagement. He dreamstreams and is the film correspondent for MediaShift. Follow him on Twitter @NickMendoza.
This episode of 5Across is brought to you by GoDaddy, helping you set up your own website in a snap with domain name registration, web hosting and 24/7 support. Visit GoDaddy to learn more.
Back in 2006 on MediaShift, I asked an innocent question to readers: In what social situations should you NOT use a cell phone? The response was overwhelming, with dozens of people upset by the lack of etiquette shown by people talking on cell phones in restaurants, theaters and even in public restrooms. We eventually came up with a definitive guide for cell phone no-no's.
Now, with smartphones becoming popular, the problem has become even worse. We have people texting while walking across the street, checking scores while out on a date, or using GPS when they could simply ask someone nearby. What's the story with smartphone etiquette? For this episode of 5Across, we convened a group of people to discuss various situations when smartphone use can be tricky -- in restaurants, with friends, in the car -- and considered an opposing view: when the phone call might be more important than the company with us in person. The result is a fascinating discussion about our transitional time, as we figure out (quite clumsily) when it's OK to chat on our smartphone and when it's not.
W. Kamau Bell is a comedian that told the very first joke about Barack Obama on Comedy Central's Premium Blend waaaaaaaay back in 2005. Unfortunately, the joke predicted that Barack would never be President. (Oops!) Comedy Central also invited Kamau to perform his critically acclaimed solo show, "The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About an Hour," at their theater in Hollywood. "The Curve" enjoyed a long run in San Francisco, had continued success in Oakland and Berkeley, and played to full houses in 2009 at the New York International Fringe Festival. His new CD, Face Full of Flour is now out on iTunes.
Fernando Castrillon earned a masters in sociology from the University of California and a doctorate in clinical psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). He currently serves as core faculty in the Community Mental Health Department at CIIS and is the director of CIIS's "Clinic without Walls." His clinical, teaching, and research interests include, among other things, the impact of hypervelocity technological change on human psychology and intersubjectivity. Currently he is working on a book based on his dissertation research, in which he examines the cultural, psychological and intersubjective consequences of the hyper-digitization of contemporary Western culture.
Nicole Lee is an associate editor for CNET.com. She reviews all manner of mobile devices, from cell phones to Bluetooth headsets. She is a co-host on Dialed In, CNET's cell phone podcast, and she also writes a bi-weekly Q&A column on CNET about cell phones called The 411. She previously worked for Gizmodo, Wired Magazine, and TechTV (now-defunct cable network about technology).
Daniel Scherotter is executive chef and owner of Palio d'Asti, an Italian restaurant in downtown San Francisco. Scherotter brought with him not only an appreciation for the lavish table of Emilia Romagna, where he worked for two years, but also an affinity for the exotic fusion of Sicily, where in 2003 he married his wife, Nina. Now that he's married, he's started working on his first book, "The Bachelor's Guide to Cooking," and serves on the board of directors of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association.
Syndi Seid is an authority on business protocol and etiquette and has appeared on "Good Morning America," CBS' "Eye on America," Fox's "Trading Spouses," HGTV's "Party At Home," and Discovery Channel's "Picture This." Major companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Sprint, Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and the Miss Universe Pageant trust her to train their employees to avoid social faux pas that could lead to major business and political blunders. She founded Advanced Etiquette worldwide to help executives and employees overcome their fears and insecurities to find poise, confidence, and authority in any social situation. Her own book, "Etiquette In Minutes is now available at EtiquetteInMinutes.com.
If you'd prefer to watch sections of the show rather than the entire show, I've broken them down by topic below.
Restaurant Etiquette
Losing Our Humanity?
An Opposing View
The Worst Offenders
Evolution of Etiquette
Etiquette Tips
Credits
Mark Glaser, executive producer and host
Darcy Cohan, producer
What do you think? What kind of etiquette do you think we should have around our smartphone use? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit.
This episode of 5Across is brought to you by GoDaddy, helping you set up your own website in a snap with domain name registration, web hosting and 24/7 support. Visit GoDaddy to learn more.
Media Shift 
