Social Media in 2010

My friend Michael Libbie likes to say, soon, we’ll no longer use the word ‘social’ in front of the term social media. He wonders when Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and whatever else will just become media.

Michael Libbie, Mike Templeton, Paul Yeager on the set of The Iowa Journal, May, 2009.

In May of 2009, Michael Libbie and Mike Templeton came into the Iowa Public Television studios to discuss social media. Libbie is the principal owner of Insight Advertising, Marketing & Communications. Templeton at the time was with the Iowa Hospital Association as their director of social media. Templeton is now with Catchfire Media.

Our feature looked at the company Lava Row based in Des Moines. We talked with Nathan Wright in April of 2009. We visited a Tweet Up at the Highlife Lounge in Des Moines to show the uses of Twitter in a couple of real-life contexts.

That was fine in May of 2009. But this is 2010. We’re supposed to be gliding around on jetpacks from place to place.

What’s changed in the last year? New Twitter users have possibly leveled off, Facebook is still climbing but can’t go much higher as it seems now that everyone has a page.

What groups are seeing the most benefit from social media?
Is it educators who are connecting kids in the classroom with the world on a faster than ever pace?
Is it farmers who can now share information or gain better understanding of their vocation?
Is it still the self-important who are blasting their every move to anyone who will read or listen?

Or is it churches like the ones profiled in this Fox25 piece out of Oklahoma City as done by my former fellow assignment editor Phil Cross. How many of your churches have pages or twitter feeds? Any texting of questions to the pastor during sermons? Live tweeting or comments on what the pastor just said during the service?

We’re looking for a good set up piece for our discussion sometime in May on the Iowa Journal. Any ideas on who is benefiting from social media in their work, life or hobby?

We want to talk about this in a feature:
Where is the value?
Has anyone made money on sending a tweet?
How about that Facebook fan page? Done you any good other than wasting time?

We’ll likely cover the same things in our discussion as well.

If you have any ideas, drop a comment here or send me an email to paul.yeager@iptv.org

I appreciate feedback and sharing of the ideas.

Is TMZ changing reporting?

A young actress named Brittney Murphy died this weekend. Where did I learn about it first? The TMZ app on my iPhone. And it’s not the first time that app has given me the most current information and many times, is the first to tell me about it.

Regardless of what you think of their product, TMZ is a reporting force. They proved it again with the Tiger Woods story. They smelled something was up and kept digging. We now know they struck oil. Or several oil fields.

They dig up contracts, lawsuits, restraining orders, compromising photos. They know everyone involved and know how to find them when news is happening or as it’s happening.

Shoe leather. Sounds familiar.

This is not the first time that TMZ has been the leader in a big story.

Flash back to June and a lazy summer day when TMZ was the ONLY media outlet saying Michael Jackson was dead. There were several rounds of people on Twitter saying, “TMZ is the only one saying MJ is dead, if they’re wrong, ouch.” Well, as it turns out, they were right, they were first and they told the world the news.

After the MJ story kept going, the New York Times profiled the operation in a story. The article points out that TMZ has sources everywhere.

Sources. I’ve heard that term before.

They do pay for some things, photos, which all media outlets do, and will pay for tips, but stop at saying they don’t pay for stories.

From the New York Times:

Like many other media outlets, TMZ pays for photos. Harvey Levin, the site’s editor in chief, said in an interview that the site will pay “tip fees” that lead to stories, but not for stories outright. He refused to say whether he had paid any sources during the Jackson coverage but he denied that the site’s staffers paid police officials or nurses.

The upstart gossip blog is a gritty, some would say grimy, Web site that publishes celebrity news in real-time. It usually traffics in mug shots, rehab reports and other salacious tidbits about celebrities. TMZ first appeared in November 2005.

So I ask you, is TMZ a legitimate news organization to be modeled after? Or do you run away from it?

Tomorrow– TMZ is innovative when it comes to production of the show and gathering of information. So much so, it may put a few of us out of work.