Comments on: On truth, Twitter, and truth on Twitter

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:21:40 +0000

On a related note, the heads of some major media companies have painted a bleak picture of the demand from advertisers and audiences for real journalism.

http://adage.com/brightcove/lineup.php?lineup=1266084202

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:44:18 +0000

@ Chris: Oh, absolutely. Traditional editorial media is far from infallible; the more intelligent sources we have, the better. And Lance, Levi, Shaq, and others deserve a lot of credit for using social media in a more valuable way than “My Trek Madone, SRAM RED components, Bontrager wheels, Giro helmet, Oakley glasses and Nike shoes were awesome today!”

But as I commented on your excellent post, individual sources are becoming able to distribute one-sided information more quickly and to more people than the media can distribute their (hopefully) unbiased coverage. That wasn’t possible before social media, especially Twitter, and we don’t know what the long-term affects will be.

That’s not a dig against Lance or anyone in particular, but a more general concern.

Everyone should read Chris’ post at http://creativextreme.com/?p=268

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:41:42 +0000

It seems that there are competing dynamics here that we are all trying to sort out. Lance has figured out a way to keep an extremely large body of potential donors/supporters for his cause tuned in and, potentially, “at the ready”. Frothingham doesn’t seem to have sorted out how he can use it to his advantage (though wasn’t he the one who noticed the lack of tweets and used that to deduce Lance’s arrival time in Sydney for the Tour Down Under?) The rest of us are still trying to figure out how to both publish our own thoughts as well as read others’.

The bigger your following, the harder it is to use Twitter (or any social media app for that matter) to have a two-way connection. The smaller your following, the easier it is to use it in innovative ways. Example, what if Frothingham used it to crowd-source questions for his next Lance interview and then gave his followers a sneak peek at the resulting article? A lot easier to do when your followers are 1:2,875 of Lance’s.

By: chris

chris — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:46:40 +0000

Clearly we are better off for having Velonews and their crew, along with all the other journalists out busting their butts trying to cover our particular bunch of lycra clad heroes. This was never an either/or question. Would you agree that both, when intelligently combined, are better than either one alone?

By: Digital Biographer™ » Posts about Personal Branding as of July 8, 2009

Digital Biographer™ » Posts about Personal Branding as of July 8, 2009 — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:17:39 +0000

[...] a damaged brand. The good news is that always being right presents opportunities for competitive On truth, Twitter, and truth on Twitter – kadisco.com 07/07/2009 This brief article in from Bicycle Retailer was surprisingly controversial [...]

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:47:37 +0000

I see your point, and I tried specifically to delineate between the way that Lance uses Twitter and the way that non-famous people have used Twitter in a historically significant way to tell the world what they believe to be the unaltered truth about what is happening in Iran. That’s just one example of many.

Maybe you and I interpreted reactions differently yesterday. I thought I saw a lot of “Why do I need this Steve Frothingham guy when I have @lancearmstrong?”

By: chris

chris — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:24:09 +0000

Josh, I agree that journalists are more interested in sharing the unaltered truth than are advertisers, however the collective consciousness of twitter (and most other social media so far) is intensely personal. Most participants are non-famous people, and to cast out the entire Twitter channel as ‘personal advertising’ seems hasty. I suspect (but I cannot prove) that most people using twitter can be just as interested as journalists, and sometimes even more so, in sharing what they believe to be the unaltered truth. They just might not share the eloquence of a seasoned writer. Granted, 140 characters does tend to level even that playing field.

Lance always picks his words carefully: he’s a pro, and he’s done this all before. Whether via Twitter or live interview, both are valid information sources and, when appropriate, entirely quotable. But my twitter account? Clearly not so quotable.

As for the slippery slope of @GeorgeWBush – nobody said, as far as I can tell, that we should ever rely on one source of information for any news, be it an interview or one single twitter account. It’s the ability to read the aggregate real-time conversation on twitter that makes it so uniquely powerful. Still, this all remains independent from the requirements of fact checking, and the social dynamics of who we trust.

By: Yokota Fritz

Yokota Fritz — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:58:24 +0000

Frothington has good points about the necessity of followup and background.

Thanks for the attribution on the photo!