Cue, a bit of confusion.

Remember that video, “Let’s Go Crazy,” uploaded by a mother of her baby dancing around the kitchen to Prince?

The video was taken down by the same Content ID system YouTube has now beefed up. It stirred controversy from all the usual suspects in copyright reform debates: the Electronic Frontier Foundation took up the mother’s case pro bono while the recording industry defended its right to have exclusive control over the way their copyrighted works are used in user-created content. YouTube eventually reinstated the video because the copyrighted music is clearly subaltern to the baby’s adorable dancing, which is the real reason for the video.

To be fair, there are also many cases of flagrantly illegal copyright infringement on YouTube everyday. The ContentID system is meant to stop those cases, because the real purpose of YouTube is to upload content that is original to the user and would not have an outlet through traditional media channels. But does it go too far? The way YouTube describes the change gives us a peek into its priorities. By saying that they can now allow larger upload because they have more advanced anti-infringement technology is a way of aligning themselves with the media industry’s interests. It might be a wholly reasonable move, since the corporate copyright holders have the most influence, clout, and legal resources. But does this jive with its role as a cultural engine in the new media landscape?

Shouldn’t YouTube be allowing a larger upload limit because it wants to foster creativity and not because it is confident it can protect the major media institutions? Or does a technology that can facilitate widespread copyright infringement have a duty to actively police its own content?

He tells a personal story, so the evidence Smith offers us does not come via charts and graphs. Still, his anecdote resonates. For example, he talks about having a friend critique an article he recently wrote. The friend pointed out a common problem: it’s too smart. Of course, whether an article is “smart” or not ultimately comes down to semantics. What we often consider to be the smartest stuff on the Internet is really an endless back-and-forth of point and counterpoint. Bloggers writing smartly dig themselves into a downward spiral by incessantly picking apart an argument in pursuit of, as Smith says, “rhetorical victory.” The problem? Readers care much less about the two sides of the debate than those engaged in it. He writes, speaking directly to these “smart bloggers”:

Every point has a counterpoint; every perspective has another point of view. The High IQers among you cannot resist the debate and the allure of a rhetorical victory. The problem is… I really don’t care. And frankly, you are irritating me.

Smith goes on to offer some tips, ways to engage their readers. Instead of falling into sarcastic absurdity, he says, they should offer readers simple and practical answers to the questions they ask. In the end, Smith advocates for bloggers to avoid the bottomless pit of Internet debate and focus more on the wants and needs of those who are on the receiving end. Simple, right? Value readers over the pride of winning a puerile argument.

So back to the original question: do smart people prefer dumb bloggers because dumb bloggers offer a simpler, more straight-forward online reading experience? Maybe. Or is it that the ephemeral online debate space makes smart critique hard to consume? More likely.

What do you think? What do you consider to be “smart blogging”? Leave us a comment below!

For those whose friends are social networking content sharing fiends, the iPad app Flipboard offers a unique “social magazine” format for consuming friends’ digital content.

The first time I saw this application, I loved the concept, the interface, and the overall design. The idea of creating a real-time visually pleasing social networking aggregator is a fabulous idea. This is where internet trends are moving: reigning in our over-stimulated brains and taking all of the elements we love about social networking (sharing) and curating them in ways that diminish the overwhelming volume of content.

However, the one caveat lies in the nature of your friends and tweeps updates. If you have a casual Facebook acquaintance who just had a baby, and is constantly posting pictures and updates (and, let’s face it, it’s getting a little old), you may find this application less useful than someone who’s friends are always posting the thoughtful articles that this gentleman in the video is flipping through. For those of you like me, who straddle the line between friends with interesting updates (whether they are tons of photos of a baby of a close friend that I’m actually interested in or compelling articles on social trends) and the “friends” who are in my network for the sake of networking, this application may force us to reconsider whether sifting through the content of the latter group is worth keeping them as friends.

But I digress.

Tracking the success of this application, as well as the ways that users find utility in it, will be a very interesting and telling case study on the blending of new and old media and the future of content curating.

So it doesn’t come as a surprise that Google released a new app development tool for the Android last week.  This time, though, it’s different.  The App Inventor for Android, as it’s called, is actually designed for use by non-developers!  That’s right, Google wants everyone to become a developer.  From the Google Lab description:

To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app’s behavior.

However, this might sound like sacrilege to bona fide app developers, the people who actually understand the way binary code translates into functional software. In some sense, the new App Inventor is more technically advanced so that more people can ignore how it actually works. If more people are using a development tool, the tradeoff is a sophisticated understand of that tool.

That being said, the tool has potential to bring many new minds into the marketplace for Android apps. Those who might otherwise have steered clear of such a highly technical endeavor might now be able to offer insight, advice, and guidance that leads to a bigger and better product both for Google and its consumer base. And if everyone’s happy, who can complain, right?

But let’s not forget that the hacker and developer space has always been plagued with political and ideological battles. Some, like the free software crowd, value technical understanding via free (as in freedom, not free as in beer), while others, like the open source crowd, value mass involvement and metastasized branching of the movement. In a way, the new Google development tool takes the side of the open source crowd. Now the question is, will it irk those on the other side?

(via)

Yesterday an article on the unveiling of the Ford Explorer 2011 model came out on Inside Facebook, a site tracking the uses and changes to Facebook for marketers and developers. In the article, the author discusses the logistics of the campaign, what Ford is doing well, and what is lacking. He sites the number of fans for the Explorer-specific page at just over 3,000.

Checking in with the page this morning, that number has soared to nearly 4,000. Good news for Ford, and for marketers who want to use Facebook as a platform for disseminating information. The lesson here: If you build it, they won’t come. If you use it (with interesting content, of course) it has enormous potential.

So what is Ford doing right? First off, they’re starting with their core group of supporters. By unveiling this information exclusively to those who are engaged with the brand on Facebook, they’re recognizing and expressing the importance of this group. This maneuver will also bring in those who were previously fans of the brand, but not participating on the Facebook page. Their attraction to this information will drive their desire to be a part of this community.

Ford is one of the brands at the forefront of social media brand integration. From the Inside Facebook article:

While some say that revealing the new Explorer on Facebook rather than at an auto show is risky, Ford has had a lot of success with its social media endeavors in the past. The launch of the new Ford Fiesta has received a lot of buzz, with much of the online chatter generated by the Fiesta Movement, which Ford launched last year almost exclusively through a number of social networks. Ford also used Facebook and other networks to generate interest in their Fusion Hybrid with last year’s Fusion 41 challenge, and benefited from leaked information about the 2011 Mustang late last year.

We’ll have to keep tabs on the growth from here, but this example is shaping up to be a very interesting case study for both new product introduction and auto industry corporate communications.

It started on May 19th when someone created a parody twitter account called BP Public Relations.  Here are just a few of the tweets:

Then, a spokesman for BP, Toby Odone, responded by saying:

I’m not aware of whether BP has made any calls to have it taken down or addressed. People are entitled to their views on what we’re doing and we have to live with those. We are doing the best we can to deal with the current situation and to try to stop the oil from flowing and to then clean it up…People are frustrated at what’s happening, as are we, and that’s just their way of expressing it.

Barbanes says this is an exemplary reaction, admitting that most companies have no idea how to respond to biting attacks via social media. Barbanes says, “That is about one of the HEALTHIEST and most enlightened responses I’ve ever read from a corporate spokesperson about a parody of their company.” And while Barbanes scoffs as the suggestion that a company should embrace these kinds of fake accounts by exposing them as false and then highlighting the real account, does it help more for the company to condone the outlash?

BP’s response might seem so ahead-of-the-curve, though, only because of its unique position at the moment. All eyes are on the company. So while their decisions seem brilliantly sympathetic to the lives they have affected, it might not be a blueprint to follow for other companies. The moral of the story here might be that it’s too soon to tell how exactly a company can effectively respond to parodies, but we should be taking notes nonetheless.

More importantly, however, Facebook has started to like a lot more things. In fact, now Facebook likes almost everything.

As of last week, Facebook has begun to give websites the option to install “Like” buttons, from which the websites can drive traffic—every “Like” posts an update to that user’s page. What does this mean? Effectively, it means that Facebook may slowly be transforming the internet into an SEO-resistant open-graph. Google is, understandably, starting to worry.

Proponents of the change argue that ‘social links’ are better than ‘normal links’ as they provide individual users with customizable browsing experiences, something never seen before. Yet Google stands to lose big: its algorithm, which relies on links between sites to determine page rankings (factors that strongly determine the success of a website) will not have access to any of Facebook’s data. What it basically comes down to: Facebook may become better positioned to rank the internet than Google. This wouldn’t be a problem if websites and individual users refused to participate and continued to use the internet as before. But it’s been a little over a week and more than 50,000 sites have already opted-in.

Though the change may seem innovative (if not a bit Big Brother-esque), opponents have raised questions about the future of internet openness. What happens when a single website controls access to links between websites and users, and the open graph becomes the web’s most integral feature? The results, concerning both fairness and privacy, could potentially be disastrous.

In the end, although social media is our passion, we at Abrams Research may have to hold judgment on Facebook’s latest decision. For only after the initial firestorm dies down (and people choose to adopt or reject Facebook’s expansion) will we truly be able to see the extent to which the open graph affects the internet and the way we use it.

[Courtesy of CNN]

Does this sound like you? When you want to check up on your friends, do you use Facebook? When you want to find out what pre-teens think is cool, is it Twitter that tells you it has been and always will be Justin Bieber?

The fact is, rather than use the phone or walk to a friend’s house, we log on and plug in. It’s gotten to the point where we don’t even think about it anymore. But what would happen if you had to abstain from social media, say, for an entire day? University of Maryland students recently found out.

This March, the University of Maryland’s International Center for Media & the Public Agenda challenged 200 undergraduates to avoid using all forms of social media, including Facebook, text messaging, laptops and iPods, for 24 hours. After the 24 hours, students were asked to anonymously, and truthfully, blog about their experiences. The findings? American college students are addicted to social media. Without it, they simply struggle to function.

Quickly, here are the study’s top 5 findings:

1. Students use literal terms of addiction when describing their social media dependence.
2. Students liken going without media to going without family and friends.
3. Students get news in disaggregated ways, such as via friends.
4. 18-21 year olds are constantly texting and on Facebook.
5. Students can live without TVs and newspapers, but not iPods.

Many students attempted to justify their withdrawal symptoms, claiming that abstaining from such devices causes logistical problems, or that social media devices are favorite forms of entertainment. For example, one student clarified that his iPod is a “way to zone out of everything and everyone”, likening it to “getting amped up like a football player before a game”.

Harmless enough. However, even after short periods of abstinence, students began to describe the isolation and inability to contact the world as “almost unbearable”, signs indicative of a greater problem, namely, that social media has ingrained itself in the very being of these students, to the point where physical and mental withdrawal symptoms begin to surface.

Considering it’s exponentially growing popularity, social media “addiction” will likely be a topic explored by a number of entities in the near future. But until then, we’ll stick by the time-tested rule: moderation is always key!

[Via The Washington Post]

Human resources departments are only as efficient as the technology they use. Fortunately, many HR directors have been eager early adopters of a number of Web 2.0 tools that have helped the practice of personnel management to evolve.

Take recruiting, for example. As young, recent graduates flood applicant pools, they bring with them the technologies of their generation. Facebook, blogs, Youtube: in a difficult market, new applicants are not afraid to employ any medium they feel may bring an advantage. And employers aren’t complaining; LinkedIn, the professional alternative to Facebook, is equally popular, and an estimated 80% of companies use it for recruiting purposes. Gone are the days when potential applicants were limited to the well-connected and the local; recruiters can now draw from international pools, discovering talent that may otherwise have been missed.

How about Employee Engagement? One of the easiest ways to improve productivity is to cultivate genuine interest in the work that is being done. With social media, it becomes a textbook example of killing two birds with one stone: employers have the opportunity to empower all levels of staff (blog writing and Facebook/Twitter account management have all proven useful tools for engaging employees), all the while evolving brand image by promoting transparency and customer service. Within certain guidelines, businesses can (and are often advised to) tap their employees’ creativity and enthusiasm (beyond the normal—and often surreptitious—Facebook use).

Finally, social media is one of information-sharing’s greatest allies. HR departments, by encouraging responsible employee social media use, encourages rapid dissemination of information, freeing it from the slow and creaky bureaucratic shackles it once was forced to wear. Who wouldn’t favor an office using G-chat over office memos? True, the risk of abuse lurks latently beneath the surface. But many believe that once the initial shock has passed, employees will easily adapt to using platforms like Twitter and Wikipedia to complement other research, thereby highly streamlining the research process in its entirety.

In the end, the key to using Web 2.0 to increase productivity is cultivating an office culture where employees are fully aware of both the advantages to using social media and their subsequent role in producing favorable results. It will undoubtedly take a bit of trial and error (and possibly a couple of behavior contracts) to strike the right balance, but even in these early days of corporate adoption, more seems to be much better than less.

[Courtesy of Personneltoday]

Unsurprisingly, the news has been met with a firestorm of opinions. But before we get to that, let’s cover the changes.

In short, a number of advertisers (currently Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks and Virgin America) will bid on product-related keywords, which when searched will appear at the top of user results. Search for trends in coffee, get a Starbucks tweet; for digital cameras, a Best Buy. Simple, no?

And in most respects, Promoted Tweets will function as do normal ones: users will be able to retweet, reply, or bookmark what they find interesting. However, Promoted Tweets will constantly be monitored for effectiveness, meaning that tweets failing to incite interest (as judged by user propensity to interact) will be removed from search results.  To combat inundating users, only one Promoted Tweet will be displayed per page.

Reluctant to commit to a more all-encompassing plan, co-founder Biz Stone stated that more changes will be considered only after they have had sufficient time to measure the success of the Promoted Tweets program. At that point, Promoted Tweets may move to third-party applications like Tweetdeck.

In response to criticism, Stone has stressed the fact that Promoted Tweets will seamlessly integrate into the existing Twitter platform, going as far as to mention that there is “not a single ad… that isn’t already an organic part of Twitter”.  Proponents of the change focus on Twitter’s dire need to turn a profit, and Stone’s decision to integrate ads in a somewhat unobtrusive manner.  However, user response has not been favorable. Complaints highlighting Myspace’s ad-related demise and the unsolicited presence of spam-like notices are the most prevalent, with some users already anticipating being driven from Twitter by exorbitant ad presence.

The most fundamental question making the rounds, however, is one we can’t yet answer: why are sponsored ads needed when advertisers already interact with users through their corporate Twitter accounts? One possible reason may be indicative of the advertisers’ strategies: Promoted Tweets effectively function as a wide net, drawing larger numbers to corporate accounts, where more personalized interaction can take place.

Whatever the reason, one thing remains clear: if users don’t approve of the changes, serious problems could be in store.

[Courtesty of PCMag and PCWorld]