mediations

PROpenMic

PROpenMic, the Ning social network set up by Robert French, will soon have 500 members (including a good number who know each other from Euprera and EuroBlog). The platform is powerful - a more serious version of Facebook - and I am hoping it will be of real value to my students.

It is early days and most people are still experimenting but it will be fascinating to see how it develops. Robert is working hard to bring in new members and again it will be interesting to see how many people can join without diluting its impact.

Like everything else, it will be about content and value - the more that people get out of it, the more they will put in.

Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky

Thanks to Penguin, I am reading an uncorrected proof copy of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, which will be one of the most compelling and influential social media books of the year. The improbably named Clay Shirky has done a splendid job of bringing together a wide range of themes into a highly readable whole that effortlessly manages to be much more than a sum of its parts.

Shirky has a piercingly sharp eye for the spotting the illuminating case studies - some familiar, some new - and using them to energise wider themes. His basic thesis is simple: "Everywhere you look groups of people are coming together to share with one another, work together, take some kind of public action." The difference is that today, unlike even ten years ago, technological change means such groups can be form and act in new and powerful ways. Drawing on a wide range of examples Shirky teases out remarkable contrasts with what has been the expected logic, and shows quite how quickly the dynamics of reputation and relationships have changed.

The thesis is not new but the achievement of Here Comes Everybody is in bringing together the argument in a focused and accessible way. Put simply, it is an exciting read that demands serious attention. 

Expect to hear much more...

 

Facebook power scores again

From today's Daily Telegraph:

(A Facebook group) is claiming victory in a battle with Sky Sports over where the live scores were displayed during Premiership matches.

Almost 6,000 fans added their support to the campaign for the return of the "top left" score on Sky Sports after the broadcaster moved its live scores to the bottom left at the start of the season.

But this weekend, as Chelsea lost to Aston Villa, the scores were back on the top left.

Facebook and PR

The Kryptonite bike lock movie was a key event which made PR practitioners start to think seriously about the impact of blogging on organisational reputation. A couple of campaigns, aimed at Cadbury and HSBC, might well have similar significance for those who are trying to explore the implications of Facebook for reputation management.

Cadbury is reintroducing the Wispa chocolate bar, apparently in response to Facebook groups like Bring back the Wispa (1,351 members, Aug 25) (BBC story: Web campaign prompts Wispa return); HSBC is under fire in groups such as Stop the Great HSBC Graduate Rip-Off! (2,621 members Aug 25) for its decision to charge interest on previously free student overdrafts (Guardian story: Now it's Facebook vs HSBC).

Comments like these are presumably rather unhelpful as HSBC battles to recruit students going to university for the first time in September:

"I'm leaving HSBC next week as well! We need to show them that they cannot just not keep their end of the bargain and get away with it! Its outrageous! I feel so cheated."

Or....

"We need to warn new students to stay away from HSBC...would setting up a new group help? Opinions please!"

The Wispa campaigners used a rather more direct PR technique when they joned a stage invasion during Iggy Pop's set at Glastonbury.