Less is More

Let me beat the dead tweet: brevity wins.

From Strunk & White to Twitter, say it clear. Say it fast. Use active verbs.

Piling on to repeated jeremiad along these topics here, Poynter gives us some research to back up the idea that the best social media messages are short and punchy.

Hmm. Just like good headlines in the past.

Because they are headlines.

Cue my Harry Truman quote: The only thing new in the world is the history we don't know.

Morph it here: The only new media theory is what we have forgotten.

Previously: Essential Twitter || It's really 120 characters || Write for the format || The present tense || Writer's almanac

Yet ANOTHER Social Platform?

Pintrest is the latest boomlet of social interactivity. Taking cues from previous upstarts, it is semi-closed (a user has to invite you) and it is somewhat random in the slosh of images and "pinned" (read - "likes") items.

Think you get to create your own Oprah like List of Things I Love.

Who uses it? Hard to get a handle so far, but I can tell you that my own anecdotal evidence is it breaks about 70/30 female audience. But how do you put marketed content into the Pintrest stream? Here's a brief primer from PRSA's email today on how writers can use Pintrest.

The platform is vastly different depending on the interface. The best experience, in my opinion, is using the full browser version on desktop. There is an app, but it is the worst -- fewer sorting options and controls. In between is the "m.pintrest" that you get from say an iPad or other mobile.

What's the impact? Why of course there is an infographic straight from Pintrest that is filled with self-important numbers.

But think back to a link from a few days ago about the "surprise" factor of finding news? Now, consider Pintrest as the "surprise" ability to go shopping. A lot of what is on here are products, "pinned" by users. Friends recommending products and wish lists of things they'd like to have.

So, is Pintrest merely the Sears Wish Book for 21st century adults? Maybe. But one statistic in the Pintrest infographic makes it worth watching as the next component to a social media strategy (let's face it kids, geo-locating via FourSquare and SCVNGR just isn't catching on in the mainstream).

Pintrest's traffic is up over 400%, and is driving more social referrals than Google+. That is a major "oh snap" considering the resources, including traditional media ad campaign, that is going into Google+.

Darn those internets. Don't they understand they are suppose to use the Googles and not the upstarts?

Today, Pintrest after a very word-of-mouth roll out has jumped to fifth in referral to sales websites. Closing on Yahoo, not that far behind Twitter. Development that bears watching for all our merch.

Monetate came up with the numbers, and along with the info that traffic is past 10 million for Pintrest, they provide this quick assessment:

Oh, and Pinterest raised $37 million in funding last year and has an unconfirmed valuation of up to $200 million. So, if you haven’t paid much attention to it yet, you might want to start.

If you want to see the whole graphic or grab it for your blog, jump here for Monetate.

At What Cost Speed?

The passing of Joe Paterno provided national news outlets the chance to re-learn the basics of Journalism 101.

It also provided the public a chance to see the sausage being made.

The highlights: CBS Sports picks up new media and student media reports that jumped the gun on what everyone knew was coming. The big question -- who really feels the need to be the first one to report Joe Pa's death?

Networks who want to be remembered. Well, guess what? We all certainly remember who screwed it up.

These days, the metric might be don't be first, in fear that you might have to walk it back.

Poynter went to town last week on all points of the compass. CBS compounds its error by not being forthcoming with its apologia -- laying it at the feet of a "source" which was a local media outlet, Onward State.

How short our memories as no less than NPR lead the way on being burned about Gabby Gifford's "death" during the Arizona shooting just over a year ago.

The beauty of analysis here comes from Craig Silverman of Regret the Error fame who now is at Poynter (to their great bonus, I might add). He hits the nail square on the head in his piece, bringing along Jay Rosen to point out that "there is no glory in being first" in these new media days.

Silverman eviscerates CBS in his analysis. Won't give it away, but it's worth the read.

He follows up with his take on how Associated Press was protected from both Paterno and Giffords by its policies.

ADDENDUM: Nice OT blast from the Indiana University based National Sports Journalism Center written by Michael Bradley. Manages to invoke the Pope.

Is It Better to Look Good than be Good?

Did anyone else miss the passing reference by the NIKE rep that the new Platinum series basketball uniforms?

Apparently NIKE really believes in the old Fernando school of looking mahvelous: It is better to look good than to feel good (or, be good). Check the quote toward the bottom of the story" "there's this emotional side of wanting to look great"

The Platinum Series

Catching Up

Been a fast last two weeks, and apologies to all who have missed this space. Some quickies before starting back on deeper subjects.

If you have not read last month's WIRED magazine story about flash mobs and they dynamic of on-line communities, you simply must. Both halves of the audience - the SIDs and the university types. As you get midway through it, and the discussion shifts to the way the crowd sees itself (especially relating the the DJ's promo become riot in LA) I'm going to ask you to think back to the message board driven events of Arkansas in the late Houston Nutt era and the North Carolina football business with Butch Davis.

Next, Joe Pa's early demise driven by social media and the desire to be first. Echos of Gabby Giffords. Much food for thought later this week.

Finally, can I just say again - !!!!! doesn't equal volume in social media. It looks childish. Because it is, especially when you can't stop using them all the time. This is Arianna! This is Craig! And now, they are going to do the perfect cheer! All those ! look just about as genuine as those Spartan cheers!

Another Decision Tree

If the genesis chart for how to manage response on social media wasn't to your liking, check out this hipper one from David Armano of Edelman Digital. It has an extra twist or two, and does advocate a lot of private discussion off line from social with the upset. I like that touch.

If You Don't Beleive Me

This past week, The Chronicle of Higher Ed, set down this op-Ed series on What The Hell Happened to College Sports, and in particular, I point out for you In particular the essay of William C. Friday entitled Get Out of Show Business.

Sound familiar?

By the way, if the series title doesn't catch your attention, how about Oscar Robinson leading the list with Don't Treat Athletes Like Gladiators.

Don't start the new year without reading these.

I See A Screen Capture Cache Future

While well intended, betcha the employees of Atos in France make lots and lots of screen captures thanks to the new company policy banning inter-office email.

Oh no, they aren't the latest Luddites. The boss wants everyone to be social with a new Facebook-like system or IM.

That's CNTL-ALT-PrtScn to image the screen so you have that CYA "email" now where a coworker told you something.

Careful What You Tweet

Another episode in the Gallery of Horrors -- a PR firm in Arizona lost Special Olympics as a client in the region because a partner made a tongue in cheek comment that was taken as derogatory to those served by Special Olympics.

And in related, closer to home news, don't threaten cops over the internet. You're gonna lose and get fined. As in, three years probation for trying to say a New Orleans cop was abusive of a woman.

Hmmmmmmm . . . Two local Fox (excuse me, FOX) television stories. Both about internet threats. Coincidence . . .

Here's the PR Advice of the Year

The best public relations executives are the ones who push back on bullies and counsel them on the importance of authenticity and transparency. Stand up to the boss. And, if the boss won't take your counsel, find another one. Life is too short to work in a culture of fear and retribution.

If you like that, read more from Steve Cody's piece off Inc.'s website, "Why Nobody is Talking About Your Company."

That pull quote is from his third point in which he is using Steve Jobs as the tent pole for restating the old cliche in a new way -- tell truth to power.

I highly recommend Cody's addendum above, which I'll aphorism into:

When power doesn't want truth, its time to go.

Words I lived up to.

What's New is Really Old

This just in -- Tom Brokaw says future news consumers can't be couch potatoes.

News flash: Dan Gillmor said that in 2009.

And in 2008.

And I said it in 2007.

Pew Speaks; You Should Listen

Just in time for your Christmas Eve and Day break -- sorry for all of you stuck at the holiday basketball tournaments and the smaller bowl games -- Pew issuedhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif another vital report on the role of the internet.

Shocking: It is central to our lives.

"These findings are one of our main signs about how deeply Internet use has woven itself into the rhythms of people's lives," report author and Pew Internet Lee Rainie said.

Here's the link: a Christmas present you can open today.

Top 10 Social Media News Moments

Everyone remembers where they were at big moments in life. Standing in front of a rear-projection big screen TV in the Scoggin Room in Malone Stadium as Chhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifallenger blew up. Seeing everyone run out of TCU's basketball gym to watch the live feed from Gulf War I's start.

Now we just have more tools to share, and we can hold them in our hands. Still, Mashable provides an interesting look at a very presentist view of history. The top 10 historical moments impacted by social media.

It might be a little to precious. And really runs out of steam on No. 10.

Bringing it All Together

(Realizing my post was getting waaaaaay long, and as a gift in the holidays, here is part two of We Taught A Generation to Steal)

Right now, we're taking that approach with a purely entertainment product -- our Northwestern State Christmas Gala.

To project to our distant on-line students, I captured the Gala. We don't have the full rights to all the music for distribution beyond our theater, so we didn't stream it live.

In the ticketing this year, we created "advanced" tickets. The Gala is festival seating, but the last two nights tend to sell out. You can't advertise to come to an event 75 minutes away without a guarantee mechanism. To provide that convenience, we put tickets on line for the first time ever, but did so at a premium. No one who was local or didn't mind standing in line had to by the $15 advanced seat; they could still by the $10 one.

After the event, we have put up, one at a time and for free, the videos we could under the rights we own. So in some ways, you didn't have to come at all to see the Gala -- oh my, some were concerned this might cost us future Gala sales.

No. The videos serve as an advertisement for next year, and they are a service.

What if they get downloaded? Great. We hope so. Why? See previous.

Why are you working during the break to create an entertainment product? Because it is our role within our community. The Gala brings the arts to thousands of kids and Northwestern State's Creative and Performing Arts program (CAPA) is that link to culture for this region. CAPA is the symphony, the dinner theater, art gallery.

Just like the athletic department is the sports entertainment in the area.

It is a vital part of the mission of the American university. As created in the late 19th century and executed here in the 21st.

With that, I encourage you to check out our little video series. It's free, unlike the ones I've created in the past for athletic departments -- mostly because they didn't get that more free served both the mission and reached new fans, keeping them connected in ways that the other media could not or would not.

Have a Merry Christmas.

Enjoy the Christmas carols.

A Modest Proposal, Pt. the Third

(Realizing my post was getting waaaaaay long, and as a gift in the holidays, here is part two of We Taught A Generation to Steal)

Learn from the entertainment world: No band makes money off records any more. Digital dimes, remember? They make money to support themselves and create a profit from touring. Performing. Selling merchandise. In the past, the world worked the other way around -- the merch was to promote the sale of the record. Now the record promotes the sale of other things.

In the education world, we "make" money from state appropriations and tuition. States want to cut appropriation and play accountability games with what you get. Tuition continues to rise, and students begin to ask, am I getting what I need for the money I'm spending.

In athletics, we are insulated at the top from the realities of economics by the socialistic practices of the conference rights packages. The 99% in non-BCS and below Division I is going broke trying to keep up.

So they propose things like limiting the number of staff that football can have. Sounds a lot like limiting the number of pages in press guides, then eliminating press guides.

Remember when those decisions were going to save us?

People -- money has to be spent and as long as it is coming in by the bushels from the networks, it will be consumed. We all managed to get by with just one or two video coordinators in the past, but because we can, we have three or five.

Once upon a time, we produced events for the people in the stands. Like the record business, they are not the auxiliary profit center to the main audience -- the one that is distant.

The result is we begin to creep up our own costs -- athletic or academic -- through ticket prices or tuition hikes. One day we discover, we have priced ourselves out of the markets we were originally designed to serve.

While free doesn't work, a $12 women's basketball ticket for a team that can't post a winning record in its league and in an entertainment market where far cheaper and better alternatives exist is no better.

We need to start thinking about the "dime point" in the middle. iTunes worked because it was 99-cents to start. Enough to cover the cost if the volume was there. Now it's up to $1.29 for new stuff. That's a dramatic jump -- almost a third of the original price. Over time, will the market bear it?

Sometimes The Obvious Isn't

My own love for CoverItLive aside, I remain somewhat amused by those who continue to try to make Twitter work for something that clearly works better as a live blog.

Oh, say, like any sporting contest.

If you don't believe me, how about the Poynter Institute?

Let me say this a little louder: IF YOU ARE CONTINUING TO USE TWITTER TO ENGAGE YOUR FOLLOWERS INSTEAD OF CIL YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

Or, just read Matt Thompson's more civil, more detailed, more lengthy explanation of same.

Thompson hits every point spot on.

Did I mention you should put down the TweetDeck and open CiL?

Here's another reason: traffic.

Chris Syme posed the question to me the other day (yes, admittedly via Twitter) was there a way to get visitor info on a Twitter page. Not users or subscribers -- actual analytics numbers. Must admit, don't know the answer right now but plan to find out.

Meanwhile, what drove ArkansasRazorbacks.com traffic through the room (as in about a 150% increase year-to-year) was using CiL on our native pages. Re-read please, especially my friends at NeuLion, et al. On. The. Native. Page.

Not on a "game central". Not letting CiL capture those numbers by linking to them. By putting the code on your server, thus generating that nice, juicy latency number ON YOUR WEBSITE.

I will fully admit to frustrated passion here.

If you haven't done it before, Thompson catches the vibe perfect in his story.

Get your account and get with it right now. This isn't just sports -- anything that you seek direct interaction works. Breaking news. Political events.

Eight Words is All You Need

Take responsibility. Tell it all. Tell is fast.

Thanks much to Chris Syme for the notice on Jane Jordan-Meier's book, The Four Stages of Highly Effective Crisis Management.

Too bad far to many people at (fill in the blank with your college sports crisis of choice) won't follow those eight simple words from Jordan-Meier.

But, then again, none of us in the clucking class would have jobs (or at least passionate pastimes) without the dunder-headed 20th century spin doctor approach so many still attempt.

Jane's book will be my New Year's Nook addiction.

Quick Notes for Academic Tweets

Something found in The Chronicle, nice starter if you haven't been in the Twitter world.

Don't Know Whether to Laugh or Cry

Or, to just kill myself since my brain has been changed.

Please take a moment to read through this infographic produced by AssistedLivingToday.com.

By the time you get to the end of it you'll be ready to throw away your iPhone, rent your clothes and run screaming to your Kaczynski cabin in the woods.

Then again, you might re-read it and say to yourself, what cockamamie Luddite BS is this?

Here's just one: Social causes you to forget things. That factoid is about a 1/3 of the way down. You know what? I can't remember 1/10th of the phone numbers I once kept in my head. I did that because it was a pain in the ass to pull out the paper list I kept in my wallet or Franklin DayPlanner of media outlets.

You know why I don't know them now? Not because social media rewired my brain. Because the cell phone stores more numbers for me and I just have to punch them up without needing to them.

Jezz -- I don't remember how to churn milk into butter and I can't do that today. Oh my God (certainly not OMG -- that would be another ill effect of social media) how will I function?

I'll go to the grocery store and buy butter. Cause it's more efficient. And cheaper. And . . . gasp . . . MODERN.

Sadly, I'm sure more than a few people will believe this stuff.

BTW, if your attention span was really down to five seconds, you would have never made it down to this point to actually get the link to the story.

Wonder if these same folks are still worried about The Red Menace. Maybe that is behind this eeeeeevil plot.

Hey, Gran Torino, get off my internet.

A Modest Proposal, Pt. Deux

(Realizing my post was getting waaaaaay long, and as a gift in the holidays, here is the next part of We Taught A Generation to Steal)

Stop using distance as a limiter: Too often we confuse the chance for exclusivity with the opportunity to price gouge. Enter here the newspaper group who thinks subscription should be the same whether you get dead trees or pixels. Really? That just pisses us off. Download should be cheaper because we know your costs are that much lower.

I've written for years about how we don't help ourselves with confiscatory price structures and locking up games and content inside pay walls. Oh, but we must pay for the service -- and you just said that yourself, says the reader.

Indeed. Want to know what bulk internet streaming really costs? How much it takes to run a back-end server system? The requirements to create your own network? Digital dimes at work again -- compared to the analog TV truck and OTA network days. But getting the $150K together to do it right is daunting. Much easier to just sign away those rights to the guys who figured out those costs, and are making rather tidy profits off your fans.

You don't think you can do it? Um, Texas isn't stupid. Brigham Young understands. And why in the heck do you think ESPN and Fox lawyers wanted all those digital rights anyway? They didn't get those suits by not knowing what they were buying.