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Yesterday, Reuters released what could be called a “reverse step” in social media policy, which instructs their journalists to avoid bias and specifically instructs them not to scoop the news wire by breaking their stories on social media sites first.

While it’s understandable that Reuters seeks to uphold the trust placed in them by their readers, the policy is moving in the wrong direction as many other online content providers strive to provide information in real-time. Indeed, the past year has seen Facebook, Google, and other online mediums provide real-time results in their search content. Additionally, search aggregators, such as LeapFish, not only provide results based on the major search engines, but access to real-time results as well, all from a single query.

The instructions make it clear that journalists are to release stories via the wire first, and then on social media outlets, including Twitter, secondarily.

The policy advises Reuters’ journalists to seek approval from their managers before using Twitter for any professional purpose, and also suggests that someone within the Reuters organization check the tweets before they’re posted so that personal bias is not disclosed. Reuters also suggests that journalists separate their personal accounts from their professional accounts.

Jennifer Bruin at Mashable states clearly what seems to be the news organization’s major concern:

“[Reuters] is torn between encouraging employees to use social media and the realization that the online behaviors of their staff put them at risk, a sentiment expressed in the comment that these tools, if misused, could ‘threaten our hard-earned reputation for independence and freedom from bias or our brand.’” Read the rest of this entry »

A long time ago in a far away land called Los Angeles, there was a great king named Conan O’Brien. After several years of his reign, his network turned on him and he went into hiding. Those still loyal to him searched high and low to no avail. Then on February 24th, he came to Twitter and announced, “Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.”

He was back, sort of. Before long, his people came back together. Over half a million followed him wherever he went, reading his tweets and, in some cases, retweeting. Soon after, Conan did something most interesting – he began to follow someone. Just one. The “followee: was a 19-year-old college student in Michigan who had only started tweeting two days before Conan under the handle @LovelyButton. O’Brien would then tweet “Sarah Killen, your life is about to change.” And so it did.  Very quickly.

The tweet that launched a new celebrity

Killen hadn’t taken the comment seriously but soon enough, word blazed across the social media lands and she had a following of over 15,000 people. Quite a large number since she was new to Twitter and only had about three followers beforehand. Not only was her name gaining notoriety, she was also amassing a small fortune. When her webcam threatened to prevent her from doing a video interview with MTV, some kind soul who sells horns in Florida bought  her a new Apple computer. And with her wedding set for later this year, she is being offered a tailor made wedding dress by a designer in New York.

We still aren’t sure why Killen was the chosen one. She says that Conan’s people contacted her through MySpace quite randomly and she said sure, not taking it too seriously. But with all the attention and very real treasures, she’s probably had a change of heart. Thousands are reaching out to a girl who, just a couple days ago, was practically unknown.

No one knows what O’Brien is plotting. Him coming onto Twitter was strange enough, but following only one person makes us all scratch our heads. I guess we’ll have to keep following Conan and Sarah to see where all this ends up.

If you haven’t already read the previous piece by Sunil on the Chatroulette site, let me give you a short breakdown. Chatroulette is a video chat-based “networking” site, consisting of two windows for video. The top window will be a random stranger from anywhere in the world, and the bottom window is you. To the right there is a text window. You can turn your video off, but you won’t be getting any action on this site without it. Sunil and I had different ideas about whether this site gets a thumbs-up…which has a whole different meaning if you spend enough time on Chatroulette.

My review is slightly tainted after finding myself more often than not coming “face to dick” rather than “face to face” with these strangers. Sunil found the site “unorganized”, but I think the better term might be primitive. You can “Next” people, “Report” people, or “Stop” – that’s about it.  To me, this is actually VERY organized. I had to give my dad a tutorial on Facebook, which might be user-friendly to the networking generation, but Chatroulette is an attractive site for people that find all the profiling and posting and gifting and fanning and following…overwhelming. And for people who don’t want a profile for one reason or another, there is another turn-on – no membership required! No email and no password, no way to trace or block anyone who disobeys the site’s BS clause forbidding obscene or pornographic material.

I couldn’t get the site to see my built-in camera. While I was problem solving, I figured I could get some help from this great network of people. But with strangers not being able to see me, I got skipped before I could even type “WAIT, HELP” or “Having technical difficulties.” Jeff Foxworthy’s doppelganger skipped me. He appeared to be networking from a suburban, country home den, the kind where your quiet and “keeps-to-himself” neighbor researches the anatomy of young children in a hidden cellar. Read the rest of this entry »