News

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last week, you are sure to have heard about the Raoul Moat vs the police story that has dominated the news.

As one of Britain’s biggest ever manhunts, the story was of course going get a lot of press time. When the situation came to a close on Saturday and Moat turned the gun on himself, what nobody expected was the subsequent public reaction.

What emerged was a Facebook fan page called “RIP Raoul Moat, You Legend”, which sent shock waves through the media, caused disgust from the public and finally being discussed by the PM in Parliament.

David Cameron speaking at the House of Commons on Wednesday said: “It is absolutely clear that Raoul Moat was a callous murderer, full stop, end of story. I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man.”

Unfortunately Mr Prime Minister, although this may be your opinion and that of the Daily Mail, it is not that of the 36,000 members who joined the group or indeed the opinion of Facebook.

A statement was released by Facebook saying: “We have 26-million people on Facebook in the UK, each of which has their own opinion, and they are entitled to express their views on Facebook as long as their comments do not violate our terms.”

However, according to the Conservative lawmaker Chris Heaton-Harris, it does violate their terms:
“We don’t want to set laws on Facebook at all, but we do want people who are hosting these sites and other pages to have some responsibility,” Heaton-Harris told BBC radio.

“What I would say to Facebook is that within its terms and conditions on this site, that its incitement goes against its terms and conditions.”

The reaction against the Facebook group has been fierce with a number of groups being set up asking for the page to be removed.

Today when searching for the group, it appears that it no longer exists. However there is a R.I.P Raoul Moat! group, which currently has 9,371 people who ‘like’ it.

The group says: R.I.P Raoul Moat! You were a loving father and an all round canny lad and No haters or you get removed from group. There is also a link to a website www.raoulmoat.com

What is interesting about the Wall of comments, is that probably more than half of them are against the group. And if you look at the other comments, a lot are idiotic such as “How can a ginger be a leg-end?”, others are from those who are expressing dissatisfaction at the police and the government. But a large number of them are saying that they understand what he did in the last week was wrong, but they feel sorry for him for one reason or another, including that he was let down by society, the mental health system, his family etc.

It’s not just the people leaving comments on the group who feel sympathy for him, in a Guardian blog Michael White admits to feeling ” have a twinge of sympathy for Raoul Moat the other day. Two, actually, though I didn’t post them on Facebook.”

He went on to say: “Clearly Moat was dangerous and had to be captured – one murder and two life-threatening attacks, one of which cost PC David Rathband his sight – but the scale and media-frenzied tone of the police hunt made me uncomfortable.

Then there was that 47-page letter he wrote, the one the newspapers printed at length. No father that he knew of, at odds with his mother, estranged from his kids and the girlfriend he had abused but decided was the one for him, it was a mess.”

The point that Michael White may be making is that it is OK to feel sympathy for Moat, but it is an entirely different matter to talk about it so openly.

This message appeared today from the admin of the group R.I.P Raoul Moat:
“A MESSAGE TO ALL HATERS AND ALL OTHERS WHO DO NOT LIKE THE IDEA OF THIS PAGE, INCLUDING THE GOVERNMENT. WE WILL NOT BE CLOSING THIS PAGE DOWN AS IT IS THE INTENTIONS OF THE ADMIN TO LET PEOPLE PAY THEIR RESPECTS. WE DO NOT CONDONE WHAT RAOUL DID ON THAT WEEK BUT YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER HE HAD A LIFE BEFORE THIS AND THAT IS WHY PEOPLE ARE PEACEFULLLY TRYING TO PAY THEIR RESPECTS…”

As Facebook themselves say, people should be able to express themselves, but realistically how far can this go? Would it be acceptable for a ‘Hitler – You Legend’ page? Clearly the crimes of Moat are not comparable to Hitler, but murder is murder and the glorification of it is surely unacceptable in our society?

Although the page now appears to have disappeared, the issue has divide the country, the story has become a vehicle for a variety of grievances felt by government and police haters and on the flip side a lever by those after tighter Facebook rules.

Where do you think Facebook should draw the line?

Yesterday Mashable posted the results of a survey claiming, in short, that women are addicted to Facebook.

The study, released by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research, uncovered numerous interesting facts that seemed to have shocked and surprised people. The issue has also been discussed like mad across the web.

What seems to have caused the biggest gasp is the fact that as many as one-third of women aged 18-34 check Facebook the moment they wake up. Yes, even before they go to the bathroom.

‘Blimey’ I can hear you saying, but as a 24-year-old woman this barely makes me raise an eyebrow. In fact, I did the exact same thing this morning!

The survey unearthed some other interesting statistics about women and their use of Facebook:

21% of women aged 18-34 check Facebook in the middle of the night. Tick, I do this when I can’t sleep .

63% use Facebook as a networking tool. Cross, networking is not something I do full stop. But this has got me thinking, maybe I should start using Facebook to build up some useful contacts.

42% think it’s okay to post photos of themselves intoxicated. Erm, what other pictures are there?

79% are fine with kissing in photos. I wish.

58% use Facebook to keep tabs on ‘frenemies’. Tick, well, frenemies or ex-boyfriends.

50% are fine with being Facebook friends with complete strangers. What? Where did this one even come from? Are you mad?

The biggest problem with this Mashable article, or the author’s opinions, is his idea that:

“It’s not just that young women are using Facebook religiously: it’s that they’re very open with what they post and who they accept as friends. Combined, it can lead to a privacy mess.”

I disagree. It’s not a privacy problem, and it only becomes one when your nosey boss decides to have a look. If they don’t want to see what’s on there, they should look at your LinkedIn profile instead. And it’s not like we are at risk from paedophiles, so what is this big need to be so private?

As Anna Leach amusingly puts it on her post for ShinyShiny:

“No one asked your boss to go looking at your Facebook profile anyway, & what the hell did he expect to find? photographs of you poring over spreadsheets and motivational business books with your friends in your spare time?”

Of course people do have the option of making part or all of their profile private, but why should they have to? As much as people, particularly the older generation, don’t like to admit, most of us don’t care about privacy. We like people being able to find us, or to share photos of friends and being able to look at people from school and vice versa. So why should they care?

another girl headed to addiction

What has been most surprising about the Mashable post is that it focusses entirely on the survey results about women. We are told that ‘the study sampled the habits of 1,605 adults using social media between May and June of this year in an attempt to break down their social media habits.’ That’s ‘adults’, so it’s not just women.

What about the statistics on men? The results show that 20% of men use Facebook as a way to ‘hook up’ with people (only 6% of women do this). 24% of men, compared to 9% of women, have broken up with someone via Facebook, and 65% of men are OK with dating people they’ve met online.

Don’t men put pictures of themselves drunk online? Oh they do, it’s just that society (or this hack writing for mashable) still seems to think it is unacceptable to see women drunk. Surely if we continue to publish articles like this which focus on women, this backward attitude will continue?

What this survey really shows is that the things women do online, however ’shocking’ people believe them to be, only affect themselves. They are not hurting anyone with their actions. However many of the things men do on Facebook can hurt others. They use Facebook to find sex and as a quick get-out from a relationship. Isn’t this more shocking?

What do you think, is there something inherently sexist in the reporting of this survey or are you truly shocked about the antics of the young women of today? Do you even think it is a problem to be ‘addicted’ to Facebook? Let me know what you think.

Is email really destined for deleted folder/recycle bin?

Email is on its way out, that is according to Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer at Facebook. She made this controversial statement to what must been a flabbergasted audience at Nielsen’s Consumer 360 conference, but what truth is there in the statement?

According to Sandberg: “If you want to know what people like us will do tomorrow, you look at what teenagers are doing today”. She says that only 11% of teens email daily and so in the near future no one will use it at all. She believes that people are turning to SMS, Twitter and other social networks, mainly hers, to communicate.

“E-mail–I can’t imagine life without it–is probably going away,” she said.

But can this really be the case or is she over hyping her own product? It is obvious that teenagers don’t use email. Why would they if all their friends are on Facebook and they can communicate quickly and easily with pictures, videos or whatever they want really.

Email is open to all

For a business however, it is rather different. The difference between email and social networks is that email is open to everyone, you can send an email from one account to a completely different one, ie from a Hotmail account to a self-hosted email. Whereas you need to be a member of Facebook or Twitter to communicate with other people on them.

Let’s say email suddenly disappeared tomorrow, it would have to be replaced with an open, business-focussed social networking site, which any business could join to gain access to each other. I suppose something like Linkedin, but on a much bigger scale. I can’t really see that happening any time soon.

The advantages of networks

Of course, social networks are ideal for certain businesses and perhaps a better way to communicate than email is. With email you actually have to know someone’s email address, unlike with Facebook. Although you do have to be a member of the network, but there are huge numbers of users once you have signed up. As Sandberg said in her presentation, Facebook has 400 million members, 100 million of which are daily mobile users, she puts this in perspective for us by saying:

“ On any given day, you can reach twice as many people in the U.S. as watch American Idol–and that only makes up 30% of our global audience.”

So for a business social networks might offer communicate opportunities. Sandberg cited a study that people who receive product recommendations from their friends are 400% more likely to buy it. What Facebook has is a ‘like’ feature. If you like something you click that and let all your friends know. The same study reiterated this point that friend-recommended products have 68% better product recognition and 200% greater recollection of brand messaging.

What future for email

But for more complicated issues within the workplace, like contracts, bills and in depth discussions, Facebook just won’t cut it. It also comes down to the appropriateness of the situation, are you really going to discuss someone’s will with them over a social network?

It is hard for us now to imagine now a life without email, it is such a big part of our lives. Even as a teenager I used email, but then again Facebook wasn’t around then. And now? I think Facebook is my biggest port for communication, I do email a few friends but only because I have their address. So maybe Sandberg has a point?

And remember how years ago everyone wore watches, it was as natural as putting on underwear. Look around your office now, how many people are wearing watches? I can’t see one person , we all just use our computer or mobiles, so things do change.

Facebook is predicting the death of email by using a demographic of non-users, is this possible? You never know, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Here is a clip of Sandberg at the conference:

Have you ever submitted your well-written, thoroughly-researched article through to an aggregate site and watched it flounder as endless top-tens and ridiculous controversy soars to the top of people’s reading lists? I can identify with you if you’re one of the many suffering from what I’d like to call “aggregate aggravation syndrome.” It’s a tough disorder to crack, but with the right content and the right attitude to summarising and pitching your content to a global, news-hungry audience, this can all change easily enough.

Realistically, it’s just a case of making sure your article looks more interesting than all the others, and I’m sure we’d all love to think it was as simple as that. Unfortunately, it’s not. Your article remains a needle in a haystack, and it’s your job to make sure it reaches the eyes and ears of every single industry-related party and all the genre-disinterested browsers it can. It’s a tough gig but there are possibilities you may have overlooked, and of course, contraversial strategies you may be using that are, much to your shock, having the opposite effect.

Bigger than Elvis

So, say you’ve written a long, sprawling article on SEO, and it encompasses research, interviews, and a level of writing rarely seen since The Guardian was released that morning. You’re happy with the work, MS Word is letting it go without so much as a single squiggly red or green line, and you’re so into your own work that sharing it with the world seems like the only viable option. So where to go from here? Why, to an aggregate site, of course!

Let me explain this logic with a sobering fact. If you’re blogging, right now, on a WordPress.com account, there are over 300′000 new posts today alone. That’s somewhere in the region of thirty new books full of articles, and you know at least one of them is likely to be similar to yours over the course of the week. Three hundred thousand. Let that sink in for a moment. What chance does yours have, even with tags and that awesome graph you made in Excel? Not many. In fact, one of my highest-traffic articles of all time on my personal blog was a random rant about a LEGO version of a Harry Potter videogame. A year or more later, and it’s ranked thousands of hits, and it was never submitted.

The point I’m making is that the internet is a seriously fickle thing. Take a look at the front page of Digg and tell me what you see. Today, for example, there are a range of articles, but most of them focus on three key elements of global-appeal news: danger, drama and pictures. If we drift into the technology section, as this is where you’re far more likely to turn up (or browse – all news bar the exclusive is, to some degree, regurgitation), then we begin to see a different pattern: humour, heated debate, and leaked intel on new tech. The reason the pattens change is because as news and articles become more specialist, more niche, readers are absorbing writing whose mindset, tone and texture more closely reflect their target audience.

I’d just like to say a few words

Every time you write a new article, think of how you’d pitch it as a freelance piece. I’m serious. I know no one wants to voluntarily pitch freelance pieces ever again if they can avoid it, as it’s something of a humiliating, degrading, grinding process that kills the soul and maims the ego. But it’s also a brilliant acid test – if you could pitch your article to me in ten words, using as much or as little jargon as possible, I can tell you whether or not it’ll work. Let’s take a look at a few high-ranking examples of more opinion-based pieces.

Now, to start with, I found an article that I think is relevant to anyone who works on websites that use Adobe’s wonder-project, Flash. The title is “Is Flash Dead? The Future of Adobe’s Plug-In.” Now, this is a fairly controversial thing to say, but what’s clever is the question mark placed after the opening statement itself. This is key – if you’re debating something about social media, and you had the choice between “Twitter is Pointless” and “Is Twitter Pointless?”, choose the second option. The reason for this is you’re posing as a neutral party, even if this isn’t the case. The decision as to whether or not to invest ten minutes reading an article of considerable depth and debate, and then responding in the comments thread, is often one made in the opening few moments of reading an article’s title and subtitle. By phrasing the controversial statement as a question, it invites debate without inviting wrath or apathy and zero click-throughs from offended parties who see you as a prejudiced commentator.

The second example I’d like to give as a great example of effective aggregate-site-management is “Fortune 100 Companies Leveraging Social Media (Infographic)“. Now, this may seem a tad deep and a little too serious, but this is currently the top Digg article on a search for “social media”. Social media’s a relaxed sport, at best, and not something you can cover without being a little relaxed. This is also a graph site, which suits that industry perfectly – anyone using FaceBook and Twitter is going to want new-age ways of communicating information, and nothing does this better than indicating to them that all they’re in for is a slick diagram rather than 1000 words of prosaic musing on the subject.

It also has stick figures.

Seriously, though, it’s a great way of dragging people in. Entertain them. Tempt them. Make them curious or make them mad, and let them click through to shower you with praise or hatred. One of the most irritating sites in the universe, in my games journalism days, was also one of the most successful, because it kept encouraging heated, angry debate between Sony loyalists and Microsoft fan-soldiers. With social media, why not talk about the advantages of Twitter over Facebook, or why Bebo’s a lost, pointless art? Tempt them in with your tag-line the same way you would if you were designing a film poster, and watch your Diggs soar.

The new age of internet journalism began this week as the legendary Rolling Stone magazine became one the first well known magazines to start charging people to view content on their website. This came as quite a shock to many, that a magazine known as a leader in counter-culture and that at times has been quite controversial,has decided to do this.

The new site they launched this week, full of new features including “Rolling Stone All Access” which, if you pay, allows you to view the whole of the Rolling Stone archives. I have to say that is pretty cool, a number of greats have written for the magazine in the past including Hunter S. Thompson, Lester Bangs and P.J. O’Rourke. And the covers (remember the Britney Spears one?)are a talking point by themselves. Of course nothing comes for free, so why shouldn’t we have to pay a bit to view it?

However with the new site, although a lot of the basic stuff from the homepage, like celebrity news, photographs, previews will remain free, if you want to read full features from the current issue, you will have to pay to do so.
The decision for Rolling Stone to do this, hasn’t gone unnoticed. Media insiders have been divided for months about whether charging for content is to only way to sustain expensive, high -quality journalism or whether it will just make readers turn to free rivals instead. I suppose only time will tell if it will be beneficial for Rolling Stone or not. At the moment, I’m inclined to think that people would just go elsewhere. I know I would, unless I knew there was no way I could read that information anywhere else. But surely people will find a way of cheating the system and making it accessible for everyone?

The Times has also announced that they will start charging for access to their site in June. Again, I’m really not sure that will work because people will just go and get their news free, elsewhere, won’t they? You can pick up a free paper on the tube, so why would you bother paying to view it online? Their argument is that the free news just won’t be of the same quality of journalism, because they won’t be able to pay their writers as much. They do have a point, the Metro isn’t the greatest journalism ever and The Evening Standard is going rapidly downhill. But they are also promising lots of exciting extras for those who pay to view the site, to try and entice you.

So what do you think, will you pay?

Ok seriously. You turn your head for two seconds and there it is: another product from Google. As it happens, I was thinking about creating an entry based on an article I read about Googling v Binging when BUZZ, out of seemingly nowhere, pops up. Following the Tweets and FB comments along the way, the biggest questions seem to be ‘What is it?’ and ‘Are you going to use it?’

Upon its release and my discovery of said release, Buzz had not been activated on my Gmail account, but within about an hour it was (upping my Google paranoia). Since then (it’s been three days) the majority of posts I’ve seen have come from Mashable. Mashable and I are really developing quite a relationship, I’d say. Good old Pete. I commented on a couple of their posts, read a bunch of the articles about Buzz that they have posted, read a couple more articles from other sources and have basically been sitting on the topic for a couple of days.

I must admit that I’m starting to feel anxiety over the pressure to ‘get’ new products and understand their usefulness. This anxiety is greatly reduced as I read comments on FB status and within Twitter – my personal fave at the moment is from John_Cleese: ‘Do not, I repeat, do not, confuse me with this Buzz stuff’. You said it, John. First reviews indicate that it doesn’t integrate with FB, as Twitter does, and as AOL is starting to as well. However, Buzz does integrate with Twitter so your Twitter posts can automatically go out to your Buzz contacts, but that’s not 100% integration so you still have to have both accounts. The question remains, why would I start using Buzz when I already have Twitter? Because it’s integrated into my gmail? Well…hmmm. I’m already annoyed that the few responses to comments I have made have gone directly into my email (you can set up a filter and that won’t happen, but I think messages should, by default, land in a separate location. This makes me want to treat Buzz like email, or IM. And, as if to illustrate this, when I posted ‘Why would I use Buzz over Twitter?’ the response I got was from a friend (who doesn’t use Twitter) saying ‘So we can talk like this now, too’. I had to explain that if she wanted to talk, we could IM through gmail, email through gmail, or even speak through gmail, but that Buzz was meant for a different purpose. The purpose that Twitter has already established, I think. Why didn’t Google just BUY Twitter? Furthermore? Visually, Buzz is messy. Following Mashable means that I have to scroll, forever, to get to other posts from my other contacts. On top of Mashable’s posts, I also see all of the 458 comments on said post. Seriously? No thanks.

Interestingly, while Twitter’s inception was based on the question ‘What are you doing?’, it seems to have evolved into ‘What’s going on?’. That seems to be where it’s most useful. Not to digress TOO much, but this morning, from the window of my hotel room, I could see a massive plume of smoke (that was precipitated by a huge flame) and wondered if it was a fire or if I was seeing things, again. Within 10 minutes of noting it, Newyorkology retweeted a post that there had been a transformer explosion, causing a fire in the exact location where I had seen the smoke (and fire). Further proof I can be as nosy (and lazy) as I want from the couch of the hotel room.

All this to say that if Twitter can deliver that to me – faster than a Domino’s pizza? Why would I switch to Buzz. Just so I could start saying “I’m going to Buzz that”, I guess. I never have been a fan of the Twitter usage of the word ‘Tweet’.

So, Rage Against The Machine has snatched UK’s beloved Christmas number one spot from X-Factor winner Joe McElderry.

When Jon and Tracy Morter organised a Facebook group last month their sole aim was to end the monopoly Simon Cowell and his X-Factor buddies had on the coveted UK Christmas single. What it turned out to be was something slightly bigger.

For those of you who somehow missed this story. Jon and Tracy Morter are a couple from Essex who started a Facebook group called “Rage Against The Machine For Christmas Number 1” because they were “fed up” with X-Factor’s four-year chart dominance during festive season.

“Fed up of Simon Cowell’s latest karaoke act being Christmas No 1? Me too … So who’s up for a mass-purchase of the track ‘KILLING IN THE NAME’ from December 13^th as a protest to the X Factor monotony?”. With these words, the battle began.

The idea was to encourage ‘real music’ fans to buy American rock-rappers Rage Against the Machine’s expletive-filled 1992 single “Killing in the Name Of” in the lead up to Christmas in order to beat McElderry’s “The Climb” to the Christmas number one spot.

So, why did they choose a 17 year-old song with the words “’F— YOU I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME” repeated 17 times over a more appropriately-angled, perhaps family-friendly, song for the festive period?

“It’s a rallying cry,” Mr Morter told NME.COM. “It’s been taken on by thousands in the group as a defiance to Simon Cowell’s ‘music machine’.”

“We picked a song that was controversial and has a strong message, and it just seems to have captured everyone’s imagination,” Mrs Morter added.

When he first heard of the campaign, Cowell labeled it as “stupid” and “cynical” and claimed it was specifically directed at him. In the end though, Cowell was gracious in defeat and called Jon and Tracy personally to congratulate them on a “well-deserved win” and a “great fight”.

A great fight it was.

In the beginning, no one really expected them to actually pull this thing off. How could two, relatively average, people from the small town of South Woodham Ferrers in Essex possibly defeat the multi-million dollar empire of music mogul Cowell?

The thing is, this little Facebook group struck a cord with people. It was time to make a stand. It was time stick it to ‘the man’.

What this campaign demonstrated was, by using social media as the medium the ‘little guy’ can make a real difference in this world. When enough people get together and are motivated to really give something a shake, anything is possible.

“The campaign behind RATM is interesting in its own right. If only because, once again, it demonstrates the power — if it can be called that — of the emergent internet radicalism,” writes Phil BC at A Very Public Sociologist.

“With very little time and cost, people are able to register their protest/opposition without the rigmarole of standing in the rain, listening to boring speeches, and beating off the desperate efforts of Trot paper sellers.”

Captain Jako at Frank Owen’s Paintbrush has a similar view on the campaign, “It once again points to the democratic potential of the internet. A grassroots effort coordinated over social networking sites and with zilch budget has proved more effective than the largely traditional marketing techniques used by wealthy industry bigwigs like Simon Cowell to get even more money out of UK consumers.”

Just five years ago, a campaign like Jon and Tracy Morter’s was almost impossible to achieve. However, in Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites, society now has a very real vehicle for change.

Forty is the new Twenty, Fifty is the new Thirty, and so on. This year is seeing an unmistakable and much needed change in the perception towards the aged and ageing. Last week in The New York Times Magazine’s 9th Annual Year in Ideas, alongside Massively Collaborative Mathematics (Using a blog and blog comments to solve complicated equations…where was Google Wave when they needed it!), and The Google Algorithm as Extinction Model (Google, saving the world, once again) was a short piece entitled The Myth of the Deficient Older Person.

The tides are finally turning for older employees, perhaps too late for the thousands who have recently found themselves laid off and brushed off in the interview process (ask my father, who spent two years searching for an upper management position in technology. He recently retired instead). One more reason I’m glad the tides are turning? I’m tired of hearing my friends complaining about their parents being on Facebook. I doubt they’ll be part of the set who spends half their day updating their status while their bosses look on. IStrategy Networks reported that the month of August saw a 25% percent jump in users over 55. You can’t help but think that a huge chunk of a valuable workforce is wasting its talents on Facebook (not that mine aren’t)…