Twitter

A hacker attack this morning, shut down Twitter, and Facebook, and Live Journal. Twitter said in its status blog that it was “defending against a denial-of-service attack.”

OK, but how was I going to let people know what I’m having for lunch? Or that the sun is finally out?

The outage began at about 9 a.m. EDT, and still had lingering access problems midday, though both Twitter and Facebook seemed to be functioning at least intermittently, giving social media addicts a collective sigh of relief.

A public-relations manager in Manhattan, said she felt completely lost.”I had to GOOGLE SEARCH Twitter to find out what was going on, when normally my Twitter feed gives me all the breaking news I need.” OH, lighten up!

Some are keeping their sense of humor.

We are hording tinned foods and begun sacrificing our pets in case this truly is the beginning of the end. We can hear looting in the streets. We can smell cars burning. We can sense peoples microblogging frustration. We are crying to ourselves. TechChuff

It’s all fun and games till WoW goes down too, and we have to fend off the hoard of zombie-men stumbling into the streets in search of cheetos and brains. Roy

What about the children?? antje wilsh

Nine months after …. a lot of babies will born! daniel

Hey! I’m over heeeeeeere!

When new media catches on, it spreads everywhere. And fast. Conversations about YouTube! were rare at first, but once we saw how quickly these videos loaded and how well they played, we wanted to tell all our friends about them!

We’ve experienced the same phenomenon with Flash, AJAX, Google, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and nearly every type of social media you can think of. We say “ooooooh! that is COOL!” then we dive into it.

Trouble is, that while we are swimming deep in the new technology we find nifty, most of our friends are doing the same (and we all keep sharing it). The result is a saturation of media.

Ad columnist for Entrepreneur.com, Roy Williams, wrote about “Advertising Trends: Publishing Past Media Overload“. In the article, he shines a spotlight on problems we face today in advertising that have only grown worse.

The more we have to look at and react to, the harder it is to see things individually. Say we go to a sports arena and have 30-70,000 people around us … ever noticed how really tough it can be to find a buddy (or wife) in the crowd?

Flip that around: in that same arena when you leave your friends (or your husband) to go grab a bite/drink/restroom break, it’s equally hard for them to see you. Getting noticed takes a LOT of effort. (And “hey I forgot my wallet” can be a painful trek back across the crowd!)

With all the new technology we have, often being force-fed to us (see how much you get hit with on your local news station’s web site!), it is no wonder those wanting your attention (and your money), have such a difficult time reaching you.

In Roy’s article, he suggests we all spend a bit more time writing headlines to get attention, then proceed to take that reader’s attention to inform them what you can do for them.

Be fun, smart, and innovative, but make sure you can back-up your headline with reality! Find what you want to get your readers to react to, and grab their attention. They are likely reading e-mail, checking in on Facebook, sending out a Tweet, checking the team scores on ESPN and doing some online shopping. Will you be seen?

Remember, there is a lot more to advertising than a pretty picture, cool graphics, or some well-written copy. It takes a balance of it all to get noticed!

Yesterday we saw a heroic pilot steer an Airbus plane into the Hudson River saving the lives of 155 people. Many traditional forms of media were not quick to respond.

I first learned of the story via a post from Twitter. Janis Krums posted this message shortly after the plane splashed into the Hudson River. In the span of the next several hours, the photo he took was viewed over 150,000 times and he was interviewed by MSN moments later. Social media is increasing its role in the mainstream world.

That role is (in part) a new form of journalism. News reporters are seemingly late to the scene. Economic woes have caused reductions in newspaper staff and what they can deliver. Journalism needs new ways to send the message.

That new form, Citizen Journalism, is becoming the new way of reporting the news. In short, Citizen journalism is people “playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information.”

The bankrupting newspaper industry should embrace these citizen journalist. They can fill the pages, help the bottom-line – and sometimes, create the best reads in the paper.

Social media is emerging as a credible form of media. It has changed the way we market by putting the power of communication into the hands of the audience. And, the results have been amazing. It has engaged people, started conversations, and made meaningful connections.

Journalism has the same opportunites through social media. Let’s see where they take it.

Do you remember where you were when you heard that JFK had been shot? That we landed on the moon? Or that the Berlin wall was coming down?

Those answers all relied on traditional media like radio and television.

Not any more.

Years from now, when we talk about the historic or unusual moments in our history the answers will be impacted by social media. The prevalence of social media and tools like Twitter has altered the way we create and consume media forever.

Let us know how you get your news – and where you were.

I wrote a quick post on BINGenuity last month for Wright Brothers day. There I commented about how maybe nothing has had a bigger effect on bringing people together and closer than the Wright’s invention, other than the computer.  So what about that computer?  2008 was a huge tipping point for social media (SM) and it is really starting to deliver on SOME of the hype.  And one of those things is certainly this connectivity.  SM is allowing creating and fostering connections with more people and organizations on more levels than could have been imagined.  It could be debated how significant those connection are, but I and millions of others are connecting and rekindling many distant friendships that I am certain would have just faded away without SM tools like Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter.

I recently listened to a Science Friday podcast discussing the future of SM that featured Tim O’Reilly, the founder and the CEO of O’Reilly Media.  Tim is a true technology icon with very keen insights.  Below are a few nuggets from that discussion:

• Simple SM Definition – “Systems that get better the more people that use them.”
• Dunbar’s Number – theoretical limit to the number of people (proposed at about 150) with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person.
• Types of Social Media: Implicit and Explicit – Tim contends the affect of some SM are obvious and it is mistake to think that this is a recent phenomenon.  O’Reilly contends that there are the sites and the tools that are explicit such as the blog like you are reading now, or Twitter, or Flickr where the tools express their social features outwardly.  However, the social aspect of many tools has also made them better in a more implicit way.  For example Google, the search engine, has not appeared like a social media application.  But one of the things that made Google so effective was the accuracy and relevance of the search results. This was in large part due to ranking formula that Google used which was implicitly social.  The ranking of any site increased with the number of other relevant sites (a community) that linked to a site.
• Communication On Your Terms – Many SM tools, are very different than email and are more like a river. You can stand by the river when you want and just watch what floats by and stick your toe in only when you want. If you don’t participate in it for days or even weeks at a time, no big deal. But like the description of social media above, the more that you do the better the system gets and what floats by is more relevant.  This is very different from email, which is point to point, requires some personal connection, and often an expected response.  Flickr, the photo and sharing tool, is another example of this difference. I tend to use it solely for the utility of the tool – the convenience, sharing, bandwidth and back up of my images, instead of the community aspect of the images themselves. But from time to time, someone tags one of my images as a favorite and I get a little involved in the community aspect, but it is my choice.

So fasten your chin straps, 2009 has lots in store. There are many predictions driven by social media and web 2.0 (a term created by O’Reilly Media).  But I am certain that community is becoming the killer app and SM will truly become a core marketing approach.  And a final note to the entrepreneurs still looking to have us download and try their latest social media gadget this year, your pitch may no longer be “come try this, it’s new,” but instead, “come try this, it really is useful and it helps.”

Related Links

• Good map of social media landscape
• Why I Love Twitter – Excellent Tim O’Reilly post on O’Reilly Radar
• 2009 SM Predictions – 14 great minds on SM and a PDF
• Follow Tim on Twitter @timoreilly
• Follow Bing on Twitter @BiNGenuity