First in a series of reaction posts that I’m doing for JOUR 325 New Media & Social Change. My students are blogging reflection papers for each of our books, and I’m going to do one with them. These are my opening statements before class.

People of Earth ….

It’s hard to beat that for an opening line in a book. Just sounds freaking grandiose, like what is going to follow is mangificent. In the case of , now out with a 10th anniversary edition, there is a payoff that’s completely worth it.

I worry my students won’t fully grasp the wonder of this book. It set my mind on fire when I first read it in the early part of the oh-ohs, while I was slogging away at a newspaper that was built on principles of closed-ness and paranoia. Their original Web site (Cluetrain.com, still rocking the late-90s Web look) stands as a monument to awesome, but I wonder if younger folks see it as a relic.

It’s not. Even without the 10th anniversary adds, in which the authors debate the merits of their own work, the work stands on its own. In fact, the extra work in some ways ruins the experience because it replaces our ability to absorb and critique with one that’s ready-made. It was necessary for the authors to reflect, of course, but it’s a shame.

If you think Cluetrain has nothing original to add, you’re missing the point. The authors were saying this when nobody else was. What you might see now as normal views of the Web was a revolution in 1999. The culture of the Web that shines through in this book – the libertarian spirit, the desire to create, the desire to have voice, the desire for authenticity – was part of the culture of the Web long before Cluetrain hit the presses. The authors set about synthesizing all they had seen and experienced in the character and subculture of the Web and went to work describing something forward-thinking – where this is taking us.

To analyze the book example-by-example is a master class in the havoc the Web hath wrought on organizations and corporations that were just fine with the way things were, thank you very much. Read more

So you don’t have to surf the Web …

1. Your weekly “get off my lawn” rant about participatory media this week comes from The Digital Journalist via the provocatively titled “Let’s Abolish ‘Citizen Journalists’.” I kid, of course, because I have more respect for journalists who come out and just say what they think rather than pick at the edges. To wit:

There are citizens and there are journalists. Everybody can be one of the former, but to be called a journalist means that you are a professional. Either you have been schooled in journalism, or you have “paid your dues,” rising slowly through the ranks.

I disagree, of course, and I don’t think the pros help their cause a bit by arguing on the basis of elitism. For an interesting follow-up, check out with Dirck Halstead, editor and publisher of The Digital Journalist.

2. Via Mashable, Twitter is about to to API developers by making all data for all tweets available. This will put developers on more even footing, but more important, it will really spur more creative Twitter applications. Between that and the launch of Google Real-Time, which will be indexing social media content continuously, it looks like 2010 will be a big year for the growth of the conversation Web.

3. What makes an academic tick? A great post by my colleague Hans Meyer at Ohio U unpacks it a bit. It starts with an exploration of how the iTunes shuffle feature is so-not-random but uses that to demonstrate the change that happens in the process of becoming a scholar. Rather than ask how or why things work (or in this case don’t work), you set about trying to determine it for yourself. It’s intellectual self-reliance. Good stuff:

So what does this post have to do with the media? Nothing really, but I wrote it so I can refer back to it on days when I don’t feel as smart as the other bloggers and researchers I read. Maybe I’m not as smart as they are, but at least I’m working on it, at least I’ve come to the point where I don’t just ask questions, I actually try to find the answers through rigorous application of scientific methods. Even if I don’t have all the answers, I have something valuable to add to the discussion. I have my perspective which I can defend because I’ve objectively looked at the evidence, as stupid as it may be.

4. President Obama visited the Lehigh Valley last week to talk job creation, and Twitter was abuzz. Citizen journalists (sorry, I won’t abolish the term) took photos, and folks from all walks shared details and info using the hashtag. It was interesting to read through the feed in real-time and see people of different views converging together in a shared space of discussion.

5. Via The Oatmeal, you don’t have to be a Web designer to have experienced this type of misery before, but you might laugh with a bit more understanding.

6. David Cohn of the most excellent Spot.Us wrote an interesting piece for PBS’ Idea Lab walking us through the cool bit of innovation that happened this fall between his site, McSweeney’s, and the SF Public Press. The collaboration helped create a dynamic story, “The Bay Bridge Explained,” that got wider exposure via partners in the process. I’m pretty upfront in my love for Spot, and they remind me every day that there’s a difference between trying something (anything!) and trying something good. Cohn may not have hit on the future here, but this is going to be a part of it.

7. Good post by Dan Gillmor today attacked ghostwritten editorials used by the mainstream professional press, in this case inspired by a piece “written” by Sarah Palin. I agree with Gillmor insofar as we’re talking about transparency; while these editorials are really advertorials for a candidate, source of the writing aside they can help drive public discussion and so I have no problem with using these pieces per se. What’s dishonest, as Gillmor notes, is printing bylines when nobody really believes the candidate actually wrote it. Even a one-sentence agate line at the end saying the column used a ghostwriter would be a welcome change. If we don’t do this kind of thing, it really keeps us from doing what we should be doing as media, which is deconstructing the myth of image-candidates.

So you don’t have to surf the Web …

1. Big changes to Facebook (cue scary music and get yer “1 MILLION STRONG TO GIVE US THE OLD FACEBOOK BACK!!!1!” group ready). Founder Mark Zuckerberg explains that they’re going to disband the network-style mode of grouping people, and this is important because privacy settings are often determined by the network you’re in. It looks like network-based privacy settings will go away in favor of the ability to clump custom settings and apply them to groups of people. Not sure how this will play out until we see the changes, but it looks like they’re going to incorporate more intuitive privacy options.

2. Rupert Murdoch, among others, have been making noise about putting online news behind a paywall. Steve Yelvingon explains why this would be an incredibly bad idea. This is one of the best reads of the week for me. The hard data seem pretty clear that an all-or-nothing approach isn’t wise, nor is a blanket view of your audience. The suggestion at the end as a potential way to shape new models to the data is interesting.

3. Another point, while I’m here with Murdoch and pay walls. The 2006 version of Murdoch sounds a lot more like a guy who understands what’s going on with the Web than the 2009 version. And for what it’s worth, Twitter founder Biz stone thinks Murdoch is off his rocker too. Still, the Fox News critic in me is almost dying for Murdoch to try this.

4. Something for the kids: Colin Horgan at True/Slant has an interesting take on why Radiohead’s Idioteque (from the genius Kid A in 2000) defines the 2000s. Read this as literary criticism, not ironclad truth, and you’re fine. You have to think that Radiohead was eerily prescient about how technology would evolve during the decade to buy into all his assertions. Like I said, read it like art and not reporting. By the way, can we just declare Kid A the best album of the decade by unanimous consent?

5. A haunting and fascinating piece of work by Wikileaks, as they published more than 570,000 messages sent on 9/11 in a type of chronological order. It’s a living history of how 9/11 unfolded through the eyes of those using text messaging.

LARRY, CALL BRIAN. WANT TO KNOW IF OUR MEN ARE OKAY, SAW A PLANE HIT BLDG

The project is really interesting, like reading a historical novel or watching a historical movie where you know something bad is going to happen. It starts with mundane calm-before-storm types of texts and slowly shows it all unfolding. There’s a lot there, but it’s a sobering read.

6. Clay Shirky warns us that things are going to get worse for journalism and community before it gets better. His argument, among other things, is that we’re going to have to go through a journalism period of community decline in the absence of news before we can recreate this thing. His thoughts are part of Yale’s “Journalism & The New Media Ecology: Who Will Pay The Messenger?” which features some big names in journalism scholarship. It’s a link I’ll be using as they release more.

7. We’ve been saying for a while that Google Wave is going to change our relationship with media. The first really good example I’ve seen came in the past couple days related to the Lakewood shootings of four police officers. The Seattle Times created a public wave that allowed citizens to share information and edit one another, a crowdsourced type of citizen journalism that improved the Times’ coverage [search "with:public seattle times" in Google Wave to check it out]. Others were using G-wave to help in the manhunt after the trail went cold, and people shared sightings and information. Pretty cool stuff. This is just the beginning, folks.

So you don’t have to surf the Web …

1. I blogged about Google Wave earlier in the week, but I really want you to check out Mashable‘s piece on how it is going to . The idea of a “public wave” is intriguing to people like me who think about journalism’s role in public discourse.

2. Best thing I’ve read this week: Clay Shirky‘s piece about authority and credibility in the digital age. He’s using the term “algorithmic authority” to describe a process by which people put levels of trust in aggregators and filters on the Web simply due to things like hits and popularity. The piece is mind-bending and I’m still digesting it, but it has me thinking a lot this week about how the wisdom of the crowds works to create new authorities on matters even as we dismantle old ones. It has implications for how we think about people cutting through media noise in the era of overload. If you read anything this week, read this.

3. Twitter‘s basic question “What are you doing?” to “What’s happening?” This may not seem like a huge deal, but it’s a new paradigm. It is a signal that Twitter recognizes a shift from the service being a me-centered medium to one that is we-centered. And, it seems, that the audience has evolved past Twitter’s original intentions for what it would be.

4. Media coverage falsely framing ACORN by falling into the he-said-she-said trap rather than providing some context via, you know, reporting? Shocking! Editor & Publisher lays out the case.

5. Blog of the week: Take a look at Jonathan Groves’ corner of the Web. Jonathan’s a buddy from the doc program at Mizzou, now setting the world on fire at Drury University. Best post of the past week is his piece about the 10-year anniversary of the Cluetrain Manifesto.

6. Frontline did an episode recently on the now-famous “Neda” video out of Iran that went viral this past summer. There is some excellent reporting here, and they broaden the argument on why citizen journalism matters by giving us the context. My first thought is that I still wince every time I see the Neda video. My second thought is that it’s terribly important that we keep showing it, if only to reinforce the idea that good media use means we encounter abuses of authority structure that make us angry. We aren’t outraged enough.

7. Just for fun, what if Star Wars characters were socially connected on Facebook? Good times, that’s what.

8. If you read ESPN, you probably know of Bill Simmons (a.k.a. The Sports Guy). Well, he’s been told by ESPN to cool it on the Twitter thing for a couple weeks. His crime? Insulting a radio station that is a partner with ESPN. Just in case our students think the corporate conglomerate media structure that sacrifices competition for the sake of efficiency isn’t such a bad deal ….

9. From the invalidate-my-own-argument department, Jackson Sun columnist Tom Bohs makes the very scary argument that citizens can’t fact check well enough to produce consistent journalism like the pros can. So we should trust the pros. Such as the kind of pro who’d misspell “Berkeley” or the last name of Dan Gillmor (not to mention get his current locale wrong). And I’m pretty skeptical Bohs actually has read We The Media. It’s all sorta funny/ironic considering Gillmor was the prime target of this fine piece of opinion journalism. If only citizens could crowdsource the editing on this piece like a real professional journalist! Oh wait, they already are .

So you don’t have to surf the Web …

1. Missouri School of Journalism students are being proactive about curriculum updates. They’ve created a site, Letters From Young Journalists, that looks to be a continuing conversation about what journalism students and recent grads think they are missing in the current curriculum. MU is wrestling with this like everybody else, but if you cut out the specific course numbers and just listen, you’ll be surprised to hear what they’re saying. You can follow their discussion on Twitter using the tag.

2. In a sign of the times and a nod to Facebook’s huge popularity, the Oxford Dictionary‘s word of the year is unfriend.

3. I think if I’d seen this from my airplane window, I would’ve freaked out a bit. Fortunately it was a space nerd WIN instead.

4. The latest Chronicle Review is a bonanza of good stuff for people interested in Journalism education. Good stuff by folks like Schudson on how academia could help keep the flame of public-service journalism alive.

5. New blog of the week: Check out Comics and Beer by my former PhD school colleague Bob Britten. It’s a blog about journalism, culture, comics, and beer. Some occasional Star Wars references, natch.

6. John Nichols, a contributor for the Nation, had some interesting thoughts about journalism business models and the possibility of public subsidies in the video below. I am skeptical about public subsidies, but he pretty succinctly states a view of journalism and democracy that I share. Hat Tip to my former J1100 student for passing this on.

7. This has nothing to do with journalism, but KU’s football team is falling apart. I couldn’t be more pleased.

8. Politico tends to annoy me with its Washington insiderish way of covering things, but kudos to them for going beyond the Daily Outrage headline about the health care reform debate and doing some real digging to discover that after all the bluster about the Stupak Amendment, the GOP health care plan covers abortion. This is the difference between being a reporter and taking someone at their word.

Stuff I’m reading and thinking about …

USC has launched Intersections to help cover South Los Angeles, which is a terribly underserved part of the region. One of the stated goals is to “train a new generation of journalists for open-minded, culturally literate reporting.” I love the positive vibe of the way the community is presented but wonder whether it overdoes it at the risk of distortion. All things considered though, this looks like a cool project and is worth watching.

Claire McCaskill took the time to share she as a United States Senator would be interested in using Twitter. She notes, “As I am walking to a hearing, or riding the tram over for a vote, I think of what I want to tell the folks at home about my work or life. This, I believe, is a fairly decent way to stay connected.” A lot of people criticize her for not using Twitter “correctly” in that she has amassed many followers but does not follow anyone. I am not in that camp (partly because I’m not sure there’s a “right way” to use Twitter, although there are many wrong ways). Followers can still reply in real time to things she says. It’s not like she’s not hearing her constituents.

Scott Murphy thanked the users of DailyKos.com for helping him win the NY-20 special congressional election. Users were donating and phone banking on his behalf even if they couldn’t vote for him. This is partly the future of civic engagement and a major leg of my dissertation. People who want to help people or causes they care about are no longer constrained by geography.

Erica Perez at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had a great story about professors using Twitter in the classroom. I’ve dabbled in it a bit this spring and plan to do more with it in the coming semester. Twitter itself might be a fad, but as an instructor it’s important to find ways to better interact with students.

Stuff I’m reading and thinking about …

Mark Briggs has a good post about applying the reputation economy to comments on news sites. In terms of discussion online, when I talk to folks running news sites the issue of civility is usually atop the list of concerns.

Vin Crosbie has some good thoughts about where we are in the media reorganization, calling us in the “middlegame.”

I spent some time with working professionals last summer when I taught Online Journalism here at MU through our online master’s program. I wish I’d had this piece by Martin Langeveld from the Nieman Journalism Lab when we talked about journalism and the stream of discussion.

Mashable has some good thoughts about passing the social recruitment test for prospective employers.

Lastly, congrats to my former LA Daily News colleague Matt Hufman, who was part of the team that produced a series that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service. Matt reported and wrote a series of editorials that went with the packages that were considered for the award. He’s a top-notch journalist and a great guy.