ABC News Embraces Kubler-Ross Stage Five: Acceptance

"Media Convergence" starts with the death of "traditional media," which has been withering on the vine for a while now. The latest casualty is a big one - a huge chunk of ABC News.

It's not just layoffs due to the lousy economy. It's the simple fact that the news industry has held on to a business model and cost structure that hasn't worked well for years. I was struck by something ABC News honcho David Westin said in his memo to staff.

The memo listed several provisions of the news division's restructuring plan, including an expanded use of digital journalists (who both produce and shoot their own stories), the combination of weekday and weekend operations for both "Good Morning America" and "World News," and, at the newsmagazines and other long-form programming, "a more flexible blend of staff and freelancers."

"The time has come to anticipate change, rather than respond to it," Westin said in the memo.

Actually the time to anticipate, rather than respond to, change came about four years ago. But it's nice that the media is finally embracing the final stage of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief: acceptance. (I went through how the media grappled with the other four stages here.)

The good news is the industry can look to several business models to overcome its many problems. Here's something I wrote back in March, and it sounds somewhat similar to what Westin wrote yesterday. (of course, I'm not the only person writing stuff like this.)

...if you want to see the news network of the future, just look at Global Voices Online or Green Options today. These networks leverage resources (i.e., writers) that are already in the places old-school networks would establish bureaus. Most of these independent writers already have their own platforms - and since they're freelancers, they have the ability to shop their work to a number of outlets at once. Right now it may seem weird to think you'd see the same reporter working for multiple papers or networks. But I follow the reporters I think do the best work, just as I look to specific bloggers who demonstrate their expertise in certain subjects. You could still have one network send a particular reporter to, say, a war zone and pay their way for exclusive content. But getting paid by the job might work best for both sides.

This business model would still be ad-driven, I think. I like the pro publica idea but it's limited to the resources of the foundation community. BBC is also an interesting model but difficult to justify in the US.

I'd argue that my pals at Live Oak Media are probably a better example today than Green Options, but I contribute there so take it with a grain of salt. And I readily acknowledge the ad-driven model has limitations, but we've already seen how paywalls fail.

I also think the news industry is ignoring a very important resource and process - business incubation. Non-profit media relies quite a bit on foundations; those foundations are not going to fund organizations forever. But if a few foundations got together to establish a virtual business incubator for the journalism industry, with a path toward "graduation" and profitability for fledgling news companies, we'd probably develop a few business models that worked.

Facebook: Still Afraid of Nipples.

So my wife let me know about a group on Facebook called "If breastfeeding offends you, put a blanket over YOUR head!" She mentioned that a number of these group members still see Facebook remove pictures of them breastfeeding.

Everybody loves Facebook. Everybody uses Facebook. And sure, it's useful and fun and spiffy and 400 million people and climbing and all that. But this is an issue I've followed for a while now.

Facebook will tell you that they host thousands of pictures of moms breastfeeding their children, and they're right. And I think it's fair to say they've gotten a little better about this. But apparently someone there still feels that partial nipple exposure in a breastfeeding pic = porn. And that's just stupid.

And again, Facebook continues to host pro-anorexia groups on its network, even though now they try to disguise themselves or insist they're about something else. Yes, Facebook is doing a better job about this, and yes, there are many more "stop pro-ana on Facebook" groups than there were.

But let's be clear - pro-ana groups are harmful and that violates Facebook's Terms of Service. And taking action to prevent people from encouraging breastfeeding - you know, like banning pictures of breastfeeding because they're "dirty" - is also a very bad idea.

Ah, but what's ok to put on Facebook? How about the Big Boobs application and fan page with over 53,000 active users, where you can talk about your favorite porn stars and such? You know, because I'd love my wife to read my Facebook Status, "David Wescott just became a fan of Big Boobs." Of course, there are countless other groups, and pictures, and all sorts of things like that.

So, to sum up, here's the de facto Facebook TOS:

1. breastfeeding pic = OK
2. breastfeeding pic that has 1 pixel of nipple = banned, you know, because that's obscene
   
3. pro-ana = sorta not OK, but we still tolerate it sometimes
4. big boobs = totally OK, as long as the nipples are covered.
   

So PLEASE, Facebook, and whoever keeps objecting to nipples in bf pics - just remember what my wife also reminded me - breastfeeding was good enough for the baby Jesus.

We call this "mainstream crossover"

My last post talked about how bloggers are really influential - notice blogger John Aravosis in the video below. Yes, that's CNN. Yes, he's wearing a suit and tie and not pajamas with cheetoh crumbs stuck in them. Note the little back and forth between Howie Kurtz and John Aravosis at the end.



Just a reminder to all of you - a conversation with a group of bloggers is ON THE RECORD. Yes, the White House laid the ground rules for the meeting and said it was on the record, but just sayin' is all.

Bloggers to WH: We're Not Gunga Din

OK, so kudos to the White House for inviting a small handful of progressive political bloggers to meet with Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser to Vice President Biden. It's not every day that bloggers get to do that - actually, it's not everyday that ANYONE gets to do that - so it's good to see that the Administration has a basic understanding of the important role bloggers play in politics.

But I was more than a bit surprised at the message some of the bloggers came away with from Bernstein - apparently liberal bloggers aren't carrying the Administration's water enough when it comes to talking about the stimulus package they signed into law last year.

I wasn't there - but here's what Erin Kotecki Vest at BlogHer had to say about it:

...I also walked away feeling the message we were supposed to leave with was this: It's our duty as bloggers to help sell YOU on the stimulus. Bernstein wanted to know where the positive blog posts were on the great things the Recovery Act was doing.

This is where I let out a heavy sigh and curse the DC machine that seems to have sucked the souls of many.

How am I supposed to blog these awesome stats (and there really are some good ones) on how we're on the road to recovery when all I have are "seed" projects that don't kick in for years and years and things that haven't, necessarily, trickled down to my family, your family, our lives?

And Americablog's John Aravosis, a longtime friend who supported candidate Obama fairly early in the primaries, had this to say:

...The only reason we're facing a budget constraint is because we gave in on the political constraint. We permitted Republicans to spin the first stimulus as an abysmal failure, when in fact it created or saved up to 2m jobs. Since Democrats didn't adequately defend the stimulus, and didn't sufficiently paint the deficit as the Republicans' doing, we now are not "politically" permitted to have a larger stimulus because the fiscal constraint has become more important than economic recovery.

And whose fault is that?

Apparently ours.

Bernstein said that the progressive blogs (perhaps he said progressive media in general) haven't done enough over the past year to tell the positive side of the stimulus.

Well. Where to start.

First of all, if the Administration isn't happy with the way the stimulus bill has been "sold" to the public, they should probably look in the mirror. But let's just say dressing down a blogger for not cheering hard enough isn't my idea of an effective outreach strategy.

See, John Aravosis isn't just an influential and passionate blogger. John gets invited to appear on television a lot, because he's smart and pithy and aggressive. John has dozens of contacts on Capitol Hill. And John has raised more than $40,000 for the Obama campaign, and thousands upon thousands more for Congressional candidates nationwide. There's simply no way Jared Bernstein would walk up to someone who ISN'T a blogger but has raised tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democrats and scold him for not being a big enough cheerleader. Bernstein would instead thank the fundraiser for the support and explain, in specific terms, how his boss was going to follow up on the promises he made.

This is the difference people miss about social media, particularly in Democratic politics. Bloggers aren't simply "media," unbiased or otherwise. They're activists. They're fundraisers. They're the base. Remember the "contributions cloud" I put together for Senator Hagan last week?

See that ridiculously big "ActBlue" right there? That's how Democrats finance campaigns today. Through the Internet. It's bloggers like John who direct readers to send big gobs of money to candidates, through ActBlue. All those little dots represent the small amounts of money raised from more "traditional" sources when compared to ActBlue.

I don't know how (or if) Erin Kotecki Vest raised money for candidates, but I know dozens if not hundreds of top-tier commercial brands are constantly knocking on her virtual door, asking her to review products, mention particular names, and so on. She's enormously influential among online moms. She's also part of the Democratic base. And let's be clear: a big chunk of the Democratic base is very disappointed in the Obama Administration right now.

Jared Bernstein needs to understand something. Meetings at the White House are nice, and it's good that he's doing them. But as politics is practiced these days, bloggers don't work for him.

He works for them.

Haiti Speaks - Who Listens?

It's now more than a month since a horrific earthquake killed almost a quarter million people and displaced thousands more in Haiti. Arguably this is when we truly learn about the amazing resilience of the human spirit, because this is when the shock has worn off, most of the global mainstream media has left, and crisis responders have other crises to address.

It's a bit of a shame, really - while it's somewhat understandable that the world's attention is focusing elsewhere, there are amazing stories of perseverance and inspiration being told. Perhaps more importantly, Haitians are telling the stories themselves.

I've sung their praises countless times before, but Global Voices Online deserves so much credit and respect for bringing these personal stories from citizen journalists forward. I make special note of a recent post by Fabienne Flessel that looked at how Haitians were celebrating Valentine's Day this year.

GVO's commitment to this story and to covering it from the perspectives of those living it is unique among "professional" media, yet amazingly common in the world of social media. Something for communications "pro's" like me to keep in mind.

Earth & Industry's Gang of Four - Lighting an Eco-friendly Candle

It's been said it's better to light a candle than curse the darkness. I don't recall seeing anything about a candle's carbon footprint, though...

Those who subscribe to the Earth and Industry Radio "Gang of Four" podcast on iTunes (yes, you can subscribe here) may have heard us take a not-so-upbeat tone in a recent "2010 Predictions" episode. So we thought we'd try to get back to our positive nature and suggest some things environmentalists can do to regain momentum when it comes to sentiment on climate change.

I think it's worth a listen - Jeff, Maria and Tim are really smart.

The Contributions Cloud

It's well established I have a thing for text clouds (and wordle) - particularly in a political context. Cloud generators are neat tools - but if you know how to apply those tools you can generate some interesting questions. I first learned about the idea on Americablog, when I saw a cloud of a State Of the Union Address. Since then I've used cloud generators to compare speeches between different political figures, and even to compare groups of bloggers in different online communities.

But what if you could use a cloud generator to measure influence - not only in a specific conversation, but in a series of political decisions? If you believe that political contributions have some semblance of influence on a politician, and you believe that the more one contributes the more influence one has, a cloud generator might be an interesting tool. I decided to give it a try. Again, I should stress that I use clouds to generate and guide questions, not necessarily conclusions. Here's what I did:

1) I went to opensecrets.org to get the "top 20" campaign contributors for the most recent campaign cycle available for my two Senators - Richard Burr and Kay Hagan. (I'm not trying to make a political statement. Readers may recall I used them as examples in my idea for C-SPAN.)

2) I went to wordle and for every $1000 donated I entered the name of the contributor in the text box. I removed spaces from the names of donors to make sure it showed up as a single word. So if "Guy Smiley" contributed $10,000 to Senator Hagan, I would have entered "GuySmiley" 10 times.

3) I messed with the fonts and layout and stuff to get a cloud that looked spiffy.

Some caveats - Senator Hagan was "in cycle," and Senator Burr wasn't - so Senator Hagan raised a ton more money. Also, here's the disclaimer from Open Secrets:

This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2009 - 2010 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

So let's get to it. Here's the "Contributions Cloud" for Senator Burr:

And here's the cloud for Senator Hagan:

At first blush it looks like Senator Burr got his campaign cash from mostly corporate sources while Senator Hagan got hers from, well, Act Blue and Emily's list. (those basically indistinguishable dots in Senator Hagan's cloud are mostly labor unions and a few progressive PAC's.)

Again, Senator Burr wasn't in cycle and wasn't doing a lot of aggressive fundraising, so I'm not sure it's fair to jump to a bunch of conclusions for him. It may make more sense to do this with House candidates, who are always in cycle. But I do think Senator Hagan's cloud is rather telling - The amount of money she raised from individuals online absolutely dwarfs everything else. Technically, ActBlue is a Political Action Committee - but essentially it's an online portal used by progressive Americans to donate to political candidates at virtually every level.

Do the people who contribute money to candidates through Act Blue speak with one voice? Hard to say, though there's no doubt they skew left. But the most important question that comes to my mind is this: Are the Democrats now this dependent on the online channel for campaign finance?

Discuss... ;)

Question Time: Kicking It Up A Notch

This has also been done before in other countries, but I have to say President Obama deserves credit for this and I hope the White House does it more.



One of the biggest complaints people have about their government these days is that government is too cloistered; not transparent enough and simply not listening to people. This is a step in the right direction - a small step, but a positive one.

Question Time: It Wasn't a Lecture

From the victory lap liberal bloggers have been taking Friday and into the weekend, you'd think President Obama smite the House Republican caucus with a mighty staff, parted the Red Sea, and and set his people free or something.

I'm really pleased with how Friday's meeting between the President and the House GOP went, broadcast live on all the major cable news networks - but really not because of some perceived political outcome. I'm pleased because this represents a first of sorts in our political discourse - A televised discussion between opposing political parties, without the rigid conditions of pre-negotiated debate rules that essentially rule out the possibility of candid exchanges. The discussions have always taken place - I've been in the room for my share of them - but the presence of the cameras was a first.

Frankly, the presence of the cameras also had its drawbacks - there were a lot of pre-packaged talking points thrown into those questions and answers.

It's been compared to "Question Time" in the UK (it actually happens in many countries with parliamentary governments) and I've heard people ask "why don't we have that here?" The real reason we don't have Question Time is simple - we separate the legislature from the executive in this country, so there's no pre-scheduled time the head of the government is regularly available.

That said, it seems perfectly appropriate that people would want more of this. I'm fairly confident the White House would love to do it again, especially if Socratic format is maintained. This may sound goofy, but I'd like to see a series of "un-conferences" of legislators, fully televised. I'd only ask one condition of the participants - you're not allowed to use anything from the sessions in a political ad. That might encourage more candor and fewer canned questions and answers.

Why Journalism is Dying, part 84,037

Of course, new technology has allowed "citizen journalists" to publish their own work, providing more competition for traditional journalists. And this technology allows people to customize the news they receive more than ever before - so what was once the half-hour newscast everyone was forced to watch is now the dim sum menu from which anyone can choose.

But a big part of it - much more than many journalists want to accept - is just how canned and over-simplified the news is these days. I've spent some time talking with scientists and health care providers lately, people who have fairly complex things to talk about. But so many journalists today don't want complex - they want controversial. And they stick to a formula they think has worked for some time. Science and medical folks think this format means a lot of important, subtle details are necessarily missed and controversies are played up at the expense of facts.

I'm learning that science bloggers like to express their frustration in some fairly creative ways. Here's one example, a priceless clip from BBC4 that I saw on Living the Scientific Life thanks to a tweet from @BoraZ:



Enjoy your weekend, everyone.

Reacting to the State of the Union Address

OK, here's the speech and the speech cloud, thanks to Wordle...

My reaction is really the result of something my wife said. President Obama was talking to the people in the room, not the people beyond it.

The President was a little chippier than I thought he'd be, with a bit more tough-guy, " I won't accept second place" rhetoric, trying to assert the value of the stimulus package and lecturing Congress:

So no, I will not give up on changing the tone of our politics. I know it's an election year. And after last week, it is clear that campaign fever has come even earlier than usual. But we still need to govern. To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills. And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that sixty votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership.

On energy, I noticed he endorsed nuclear power and gave a few references to climate change. I got sort of a chuckle out of this, on the need to pass a comprehensive bill:

I know there have been questions about whether we can afford such changes in a tough economy; and I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change.

I thought the speech got to the laundry list of policy proposals quickly. And I also thought the speech was a tactical retreat on health care. It came up far too late in the speech. No real specifics.

My wife made an interesting point - she didn't think the handful of sarcastic quips helped much. She thought President Obama wasn't just talking to a cynical Congress or the beltway punditry. He was talking to all of us, and he needed to be the adult in the room.

That's when I realized as I went through the remarks, he wasn't really talking to America - he really was talking to Congress.

Game Changer: The Supreme Court, Campaign Finance, and Social Media

Last week, depending on how you look at it, the US Supreme Court either struck a blow for free speech or ended democracy as we know it.

In a controversial 5-4 decision that overturned decades of precedent, the Court rejected several specific restrictions on corporate (and union) spending on political campaigns. The decision arguably gives large companies (who dramatically outspend labor and other interests on political activities today) the ability to spend virtually unlimited amounts of money on television commercials that mention political candidates by name at any time during a campaign.

I found it very interesting that mainstream media coverage of this decision immediately leaped to the conclusion that this meant we will see millions more political attack ads on television. We will, but that's just the beginning of it. I didn't really see much about how companies can leverage the online channel now - I think that's because mainstream journalists and beltway pundits still have no clue how the Internet works.

As the reaction from the party in, ahem, "power" suggests, the ruling strikes fear in the hearts of any Democrat who wants to take on an industry. Dems are already trying to draft legislation that will curtail the Court's ruling and looking for angles to make it work - companies that get money from the government (The GOP opened that door recently on abortion restrictions in proposed health care legislation), companies that make most of their money overseas, and so on. Regardless, it looks like large companies will have much more influence over the political process for the forseeable future, and Democrats will be looking for something to level the playing field again.

They'll start by looking at sites like Act Blue and the political blogosphere - the virtual ATM that propelled President Obama to victory in 2008. It's no secret that the Obama campaign leveraged social media to break all kinds of fundraising records.

Small problem, though. The political blogosphere is amazingly polarized and cynical. It's not a place for consensus-builders or moderates. The people who raised money for the President online think the President must deliver on the things he promised in the campaign. They feel betrayed on health care, on civil rights, on labor and environment issues, and on our presence in Guantanamo Bay and the Middle East. They largely think the Administration has said one thing and done another when addressing big bank bailouts and regulation, and all things financial.

So if the Democrats want the cash it will take to beat back corporate financing of campaigns, they really have four options:

1) Just do what companies tell them to and try to figure out a way to save face with voters.
2) Double-down with the trial bar, historically the largest source of funding for the Democrats
3) Deliver on the things they promised to the liberal bloggers and open the spigots back up
4) Create a new, massive social network of inspired moderates

Right now the Democrats' answer lies in social media channels. It's the one thing the GOP and its corporate allies really don't do well. The challenge with this option, however, is having the courage to cede part of its agenda to real people.

Stay tuned.

Crowdsourcing Diplomacy

Secretary Clinton gave a very important speech today about the role of new technologies in achieving diplomatic and humanitarian goals. Of course, this topic is nothing new to groups like Global Voices Online or Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group. But here's something that IS new:

...today I’m announcing that over the next year, we will work with partners in industry, academia, and nongovernmental organizations to establish a standing effort that will harness the power of connection technologies and apply them to our diplomatic goals. By relying on mobile phones, mapping applications, and other new tools, we can empower citizens and leverage our traditional diplomacy. We can address deficiencies in the current market for innovation.

Let me give you one example. Let’s say I want to create a mobile phone application that would allow people to rate government ministries, including ours, on their responsiveness and efficiency and also to ferret out and report corruption. The hardware required to make this idea work is already in the hands of billions of potential users. And the software involved would be relatively inexpensive to develop and deploy.

If people took advantage of this tool, it would help us target our foreign assistance spending, improve lives, and encourage foreign investment in countries with responsible governments. However, right now, mobile application developers have no financial assistance to pursue that project on their own, and the State Department currently lacks a mechanism to make it happen. But this initiative should help resolve that problem and provide long-term dividends from modest investments in innovation. We’re going to work with experts to find the best structure for this venture, and we’ll need the talent and resources of technology companies and nonprofits in order to get the best results most quickly. So for those of you in the room who have this kind of talent, expertise, please consider yourselves invited to help us.

In the meantime, there are companies, individuals, and institutions working on ideas and applications that could already advance our diplomatic and development objectives. And the State Department will be launching an innovation competition to give this work an immediate boost. We’ll be asking Americans to send us their best ideas for applications and technologies that help break down language barriers, overcome illiteracy, connect people to the services and information they need. Microsoft, for example, has already developed a prototype for a digital doctor that could help provide medical care in isolated rural communities. We want to see more ideas like that. And we’ll work with the winners of the competition and provide grants to help build their ideas to scale.

Now THAT'S an open platform.

Of course, we're already seeing innovation from the ground up to meet a multitude of challenges, like mapping technology from Ushaidi's work in response to the earthquake in Haiti to the work of innovators like Lalitesh Katragadda. But it's amazing and inspiring to see this kind of open call from the most influential diplomat in the world.

I'm looking forward to learning the details of this contest. I'm wondering if they will make all the submissions public - it could become one of the largest (if not the largest) repositories of technology-based innovative solutions to the worlds problems ever built.

I don't think I'm exaggerating at all to suggest that this project could become Secretary Clinton's legacy. The potential here is absolutely enormous.

An Outsider's Take on #scio10

The ScienceOnline 2010 Conference was held over this weekend, and I'm proud that my company was one of the sponsors - and the only public affairs firm to sponsor. I hope it demonstrates our willingness to think beyond the trite, formulaic, "how you can drive sales with Twitter" world and directly support online communities that are doing much more than blogging about blogging.

There have been dozens of posts written by the conference participants - I thought I'd add my non-scientist perspective and reactions, as well as my warmest thanks to Anton Zuiker and Bora Zivkovic for their leadership in organizing the conference.

The first thing I noticed was rather typical of the blogging conferences and meetings I've attended - people are very excited to see each other. There was no question this was a community of like-minded souls who were thrilled to be among friends and colleagues. Some even talked about feeling somewhat isolated where they lived, and felt "at home" here. As a non-scientist with few friends in attendance, I could tell people were looking at me and wondering why I was there. (It happens.)

The second thing I noticed was how many members of the "mainstream" media were there not to cover the event, but to listen and learn. The Charlotte Observer, Reuters, The American Scientist, US News & World Report, and dozens of freelance stringers were there. The Federal government had people here as well - NASA, Energy, EPA, and NIH were represented. So there's obviously a core group of people who see this community as essential to their communication and professional efforts in 2010 and beyond.

There were also a lot of bloggers who had very specific and strategic professional goals and pursued them in earnest. Lots of bloggers/writers wanting to score book deals, get paid writing gigs, things like that. I hadn't seen that before.

And while this wasn't present in all the sessions, the "bloggers vs. journalists" meme was clearly an underlying struggle in many panel discussions. In the PR world we have similarly distracting discussions that focus on nomenclature. To my new friends in the science world let me offer this piece of advice: let it go. It doesn't matter. And to those who insist it does, I say go write a 30-volume treatise on the topic, and get back to me when you're finished so I can throw it away.

Finally, there were a few things that really gave me hope that the science community can extend beyond its current discussions and engage others on important issues. Science journalism is more niche now, and there are fewer mainstream pubs that make a point of sharing science with lay audiences. Scientists must bypass mainstream media more often and speak to people directly through social media channels.

To that end I was excited to learn about Scienceforcitizens.net and to know that so many science bloggers want to have an impact on the issues that affect everyone. Building conversations across communities is a very difficult thing to do, but there are people who are passionately committed to doing this, and I hope I have the chance to work with them.

The Myth of the "Green Media Bubble"

The Wall Street Journal's popular and influential Environmental Capital blog shut its doors last week, without much notice. This led to some speculation that the WSJ is part of some climate change denialist conspiracy, and others claimed there's some sort of "green media bubble."

Ummm... No. On both counts.

This is more a reflection of the reality of the media industry and how some companies are approaching it. I've spoken with some colleagues about this. We wouldn't be at all surprised to see some reincarnation of Environmental Capital behind a paywall. After all, that's where the Murdoch media-empire is headed - their approach to intellectual property frowns on giving people free access to popular content, and they're clearly not sold on the advertising-based online business model.

The question we should be asking is who will step up to be the leading provider of content in this space. Environmental Capital was a green business content powerhouse. The most popular "brands" in online green media - places like Treehugger, Worldchanging, Grist, etc. - are not business pubs.

Obviously there's the New York Times' Green Inc., but the rumors are flying that their days are numbered (again, a reflection of larger business issues in the media industry and nothing more). Another mainstream alternative is Reuters' Green Business, which has a more global feel. The GreenBiz Network, my pals at Live Oak Media's Earth and Industry , Triplepundit, and Energy Boom are next-gen social alternatives to the mainstream guys, but they're also more likely to have a pro-green bias. Alt Energy Stocks is where I go to look at thoughtful commentary and analysis on green finance. Marc Gunther also writes regularly at the same level of quality as the team at Environmental Capital. There are dozens more, and now that the all-powerful WSJ brand has retreated from the field, I'm expecting at least some of these sites will see their readership rise. If you create a netvibes tab or google reader category with these sites, you have instant access to all of it.

And this is why I'm really questioning WSJ's move. Their content was great. But it's not like there's an absence of similarly great content in this space. In this business, you can obviously assert your intellectual property rights and say people should pay for your content. But this is 2010, and the amount of excellent, insightful, and free content is increasing daily.

Gonna get all nerdy and stuff

This weekend is ScienceOnline 2010 and I'm looking forward to meeting some of the more prolific and influential science writers in the world. I'm giving a brief, "Ignite" presentation in which I'll try to talk about how I think science and medical bloggers can have an impact on other online communities.

In the time I've worked in social media I've noticed that the sci/med online communities doesn't talk a lot with other online communities - particularly the community of people that makes almost all the household decisions, moms. I'm also noticing that sci/med bloggers care quite a bit about how journalists cover their research, but don't seem to talk much about how they can talk directly to the people they're trying to influence from their work.

I think we need more bridge figures - more specifically, we need more mom scientists and mom doctors who are comfortable talking in both communities.

More updates as I can post them.

Social Media in 2010: Nothing Important Will Change

So all the shiny social media gurus are out there inventing new terminology to restate the obvious for their "2010 predictions" posts.

But here's the truth: nothing of any consequence will fundamentally reshape the best practices of social media in 2010. NOTHING. Here's why.

Relationships will still be the single most important thing for social media. Opinion leaders in online communities will still be the ones driving most of the discussions. Content will still be king.

"Authenticity" and "transparency" will still be buzzwords, and some people will still try to come up with ways to get around both. A lot of PR flacks will still treat blogs like they're just online newspapers and send bloggers generic press releases.

Democrats will continue to use the Internet as an ATM, Republicans will continue to use the Internet as a way to write about what they heard on talk radio.

There will be a lot of useless blather about social media tools. Someone will come up with a new shiny toy and a select group of people will need to have it right away. Then in three months the price will drop. We'll see another iPhone-killer, Google-killer, Facebook-killer, and Twitter-killer. None of them will kill anything. This is the year that blogs will be dead. Again.

Someone will get burned for publishing something inappropriate on a social network.

Someone nobody knows today will do something creative and it will become very popular on the Internet for a short amount of time, and companies across the globe will say "we need to do something like THAT."

Social media flacks will publish astoundingly mundane things about their personal information gathering and processing habits. A few of them may actually think someone cares. Seriously.

Somebody somewhere will use a social network to do something that will do a lot of good for a lot of people, but very few people will notice it.

And the best in the social media PR business will continue to slowly, quietly, build relationships with online opinion leaders in interesting and important communities. They will continue to connect clients and bloggers and they won't rely on just conference calls to do it.

You know, just like 2009.

A Social Media Guru Challenge

Welcome to 2010 - and while I'm busy with work stuff already, I've thought of the perfect new year's resolution for social media PR types like myself.

I'm going to try to go without ridiculous metaphors for 6 months.

It will be like a Red Sox fan avoiding the words, "Yankees suck."

(That's a simile, not a metaphor, people. Look it up.)

Reactions to Smokenhagen

I was going to write this long rant about failing to meet minimal expectations and agreements to consider agreeing but thought better of it - because I get to chat occasionally with some of the coolest green bloggers EVAH - Tim Hurst, Maria Surma Manka and Jeff McIntire-Strassburg - and we talked about it there and made a podcast. You can find it at Tim Hurst's Ecopolitology blog and at Earth & Industry.

Tim, by the way, is ridiculous crazy awesome. (yes, I know. Man crush.) He and I chatted a bit about speech clouds and he came up with this really cool idea to take the concept to the next level.

So we threw together a google maps mashup of speech clouds that came from COP15. We invited Solana Larsen of Global Voices Online to play along, since they put together a special section of citizen media coverage of COP15. And I opened it up for anyone to contribute anything they want to it.

This is going to shock you but most of the speeches say the time for talk is over and the time for action is now. Where have I heard that before?

Oh, and I'm heading off the grid for the holidays. Happy happy merry merry ho ho ho. See you in 2010...

At the Copen... Copen-Cabana....

Yeah, I know, you didn't think I could do worse than "Copen-Puffs", but I did.

I contributed a column to Business Lexington this week where I labeled COP15 the "You First Summit." Basically everyone is willing to talk tough and demand action but no one will lift a finger unless someone else does it first. There's still one more day to see if the brinksmanship will end and people will get serious, and you could argue that's what it takes in global negotiations.

Here's the sad part - I actually wrote the column before the conference began. Call me cynical, but call me right. Tim Hurst was kind enough to pick up my "coverage" of the summit over at Ecopolitology, and there have been a few more updates since then - mostly sad. Of course, if you're an optimist that means that President Obama is about to swoop in at the last minute and save the world.

A couple of items worth noting from COP15:

Samoa waits patiently for countries with money to do something. The Samoan Ambassador to the UN showed up and basically told the rest of the world while they're posturing, his country is sinking into the ocean. Not good.

Developing countries walk out, then walk back in. "Negotiations" were halted for a few hours while the G77 decides to show the world they're serious by not picking up a ball and not going home.

The COP15 President resigns suddenly - but really, this was planned, we just forgot to tell everyone. Now the Danish Prime Minister is the "President" of COP15 but Connie Hedegaard is basically still doing everything she was doing. Apparently with all these presidents flying in the Danish leader needed more clout, but...

No one is listening to the prime minister of whats-is-stan or someplace. Reuters reports that 120-ish heads of state are in Copenhagen and all want to address the assembly, but the assembly is busy in negotiations. So the leader of an entire country talks to a half-empty room while some low-level bureaucrat whispers into his earpiece, "I'm sorry Mr. Prime Minister but you've gone over your allotted five minutes."

Secretary Clinton pulls $100 billion out of thin air. In what could be argued as a shift in position, the US apparently is ready to participate in a $100 billion/year (i.e., the low end of what's necessary for poor countries to address climate change) global fund to help Samoa and other countries, though where this money will come from and how it will be spent is not known.

Nobody's happy and everyone's waiting for someone else to blink. It's someone else's fault. Essentially everyone is trying to goad everyone else into making the first major concession. Not sure how that happens.

But there's a bright side too. One of the people who's actually working at the summit says it's a big deal, mostly because everyone is talking about climate change and a number of big countries have made tentative commitments - this wouldn't have happened in the absence of the summit.

There's no doubt that people will declare victory once this thing is done. But I'll be talking with three of my green-blogging pals to get the straight skinny...