The Revolution Will Not Be Socialized -- The Homogenization of Social Media

I think this is a particularly interesting discussion for Newsvine, since some of the other social media you mention do not have such a specific category of content enshrined in the name.

Is Newsvine is about “news"? What qualifies as news?

In my experience, whether television, newspaper or magazine, the MSM has slide into a broader definition of news over the course of my lifetime. Entertainment and gossip seem a growing percentage of “news" content.

But even in the classic newspaper sense, what was news? Obviously legislation, war & peace, new technology and court rulings have played a large role, but celebrity and gossip have played a role as well. The basics of obituaries, wedding announcements, society pages and sensations like the Lindburgh baby kidnapping all appeared in the “news". Speculation in the form of analysis of politics or sports is labeled opinion, but is it “news".

And where does the line between magazine periodicals and news lie, especially when the magazine is geared towards a lifestyle / cultural niche. On Newsvine, surveys and navel gazing have found a role, which I have been more aware of with the new homepage design, but these have become common Internet socialization since the birth of the BBS.

The ease and speed of publication seems to contribute as well. Shallow feeds, that break the news item but contain little meat, are much easier to inject into Newsvine than the citizen journalist articles that Newsvine's creators tried to cultivate.

Perhaps there is a time when journalism should be left to journalist. Seeds that spark cyclical discussion might need be abandoned so as to hinder the tethering of Newsvine to other online communities? It would be a much thinner selection of content if instead of seeding a news item, a member had to collect quotations from multiple sources and do background investigation so as to author true articles.

And what is the role of semantics in shaping our expectations? Each user has a “column" which in traditional media, refers to opinion and commentary not investigative news. When even the professionals lack the integrity to disclose sources, why should the amateurs bother to cite them?

Have Newsvine staff published any data comparing the number of users who write articles, seed links and contribute comments? Does the theory of meritocracy actually reward journalistic effort on this platform called “News"vine.

Is “News"vine even about “news", or is it just a venue for socializing about whatever suites our fancy, even if the rest of the Internet has already said the same thing?

killfile:

The essential paradox is also evident in the proliferation of television channels.

Each channel is driven by different impulses:

First, to gather a core and self-sustaining audience capable of allowing the network to maintain breakeven status; this requires a market niche. Personally, I watch the DIY network once every couple of months when I run across older re-runs of Rock Solid because it used to be hosted by the guy that did my Mom's front walkway (I boycott new episodes). But that's it. They have their niche, I'm not in it, but good luck to them. Corporations, entrepreneurs and banks love that "breakeven" stuff, and as early on in the business plan as possible.

Second, to grow market share and thereby profits. To do that, though, the appeal must be to the mainstream, i.e., the networks must step out of their niche as far as they dare without alienating their core "breakeven" audience. Thus, Leanne Tweeden got her big break on a dance show on ESPN2

Those are contradictory aims. Finding an equilibrium point in there is hard. And ongoing.

Perhaps it's my own bias shining through, but to a certain degree, I believe Newsvine is above this. Unlike Digg and other social networking sites of that sort, Newsvine encourages original content. When I was a member of Digg (before it went downhill), I had no desire to publish anything original. Sure, I could've gotten my own blog and written things on there and then Dugg them, but the desire was never there. When I came to Newsvine, I saw the ease and encouragement you get for writing original articles. Even aside from statistical and monetary compensation, there is the notion that, for writing your thoughts, you will most likely get to see other people's thoughts on the same issue.

This, I believe, is Newsvine's strength, and what it will take to separate itself from the horde.

The result is rapidly becoming apparent: social networks, from del.icio.us to Digg and from netvouz to Newsvine are becoming perilously alike. A quick shuffle through the "popular content" of the dozens of developing networks, each claiming a unique and specialized area of content and function, reveals an almost identical list of links and topics. In a short-sighted attempt to be "everything to everyone" the individual posters to these networks, in disparate competition for eyeballs and attention, are cannibalizing the content from other sites. The result is an echo-chamber not unlike the Main Stream Media that Social Media once aspired to replace.

I only use Newsvine, but I can say I have discovered multiple layers to the site. The leaderboard, top of the vine, and other features only show a small portion of the content and discussion available. For those that are not addicted to being on top, this canibalization doesn't occur. There is some great original content and discussion. So I think that certain aspects of this media will be homogenized because we are addicted to efficiency, but I am still amazed at how many people are willing to write, read, and comment on stories that are important to them. Still potential to overcome as long as the network stays open.

I think of newsvine as the "real" news. I get a better understanding of the state of the world here-what's actually going on in peoples lives.

On one hand, it's not odd at all for Viners to seed (or even write) stories minutes or hours ahead of the Associated Press. The conversation in comment threads is (generally) incredibly intelligent and sometimes reveals more information than was in the initial seed.

On the other hand, on the day of the Paris Hilton goes back to jail verdict, there were roughyl three original articles, three seeds (in addition to at least two A.P. stories) about Ms. Hilton. I'm not one to say "don't talk about that tripe" because if celebrity gossip interests you, who am I to tell you to stop? If it ever becomes the norm, however, for so much Newsvine space to be dedicated to this kind of "news" I can't say that I'd stay.

It all comes down to how you want to define the "news" part of newsvine. Many of the pieces I write are not news stories in the traditional sense. But they do fit, in my opinion. Let me explain.

The analogy I use is to a newspaper.

Is a newspaper 100 percent news? No.

We have book and movie reviews - many by me - which I see as equivilent to the entertainment/lifestyle section of the newspaper.

We have people debating issues of all types and that, to me, is the equivilent of the opinion and editorial pages.

We have silly posts and "useless" topics which I consider the comics section.

I've been pleased to see more of an organized push for UK news because if there is anything missing from our newspaper, er, Newsvine it is a strong world section.

Recently there was an increase in the number of useless stories. And some Newsviners expressed concern that, essentially, the comics section was getting too big. And that give me personally a needed check. I took it as, "Scott, you can write serious good pieces so why are you writing this drivel?" And while I can argue the merit of useless writing I vowed to cease writing those pieces.

My guess, Killfile, is what is bothering you most are these useless stories and a recent spike in the number of seeds to You Tube videos. I understand your logic but as I've spelled out, I think, I've shown where I think are wrong.

Two other thoughts:
1) If there is one thing at Newsvine that does not fit this analogy it is all the fiction writers. But that's why I tread carefully in starting the fiction exercises, asking first if there is interest and only starting exercises and the fiction writing group after much interest was expressed.

2) I came to Newsvine after reading the Wall Street Journal article that talked about Newsvine, digg and the other sites. One reason I chose this place instead of those was because it seemed to have a wider scope. I think that is a good thing, especially if - as Raat and Noah (two of our finest writers) note this place puts an emphasis on original content versus just seeding material.

If anything is askew at Newsvine it is that I would love to see even more original content versus seeded material. That is why I started the Personal Narratives and Review Cafe groups - to encourge more of that.

It's just growing pains. The internet is like a handful of iron filings which have been tossed onto the ground, and then they all line up with the lines of force of a magnet. There's chaos at first, there's anger at first... but then there's one thing that endures - dialogue. Several years ago, I retreated to my computer and started typing up all my thoughts about how the problem with the world is that people reason based on consensus... and not independently. Having spent some time at places like reddit.com and wikipedia.org and having seen the internet evolving... I see that consensus based reasoning is healthy - when it is not short circuited by elitists who have centralized media organizations - and who's polemics masquerade as if they were a national dialogue, and a national consensus.

We seem to need the social homogeneity, as a lube for the violence and injustice we foment, or otherwise facilitate. Can't we make lemonade? We could give it away. How refreshing!?!

Killfile,

Thanks for this, I will highlight this in our site's headlines on Monday. I was thinking of posting something similar but you beat me to the punch with a good start at it.

While it's unfortunate that Newsvine and other social media sites wind up getting dominated by much of the same garbage that clogs mainstream media sites, in a sense it's because Newsviners are too often chasing the same goals as MSM - high ratings, strong search engine placement, high life within a <24-hour news cycle, and so on. In other words, if you want to build up mass audiences for advertisers you usually wind up chasing least-common-denominator content in a very, very thin slice of the world's attention span.

But in fact much of the value in publishing - both in Newsvine and in general - is in finding high-margin audiences that want to focus on very specific topics. This is what powers Google's profits through its contextual ad services - there's money in the big keywords but there's also lots and lots of money to be had in dominating highly contextual topics via AdWords or AdSense. It's also what's starting to power social media tools such as Near-Time, which is focusing on establishing a premium model for very small groups who want to share media on a private or semi-public basis. In other words, the "Long Tail" is where most of the action is in online content but ironically most social media sites have done a poor job in helping people to find the long tail effectively. Newsvine has a wealth of features that COULD make that happen, but they're not really tuned very effectively. For example, the "Top Seeds" section is a joke - I am sure that it drives ad revenues fairly effectively but it's a real turn-off for people looking for serious seeds and discussions. With a little more tuning Newsvine has the potential to be a powerful tool for surfacing serious news and fun news that's really worth looking at (no more T&A seeds, please!!) but it's still a little short of that goal.

I think it's important that even if others are watering down the idea (occasionally) of Newsvine, to continue to put thought into articles posted.

It's likely I'll never seed any articles here. There are a hundred people who would beat me to the article to be seeded, anyway. (lol)

Consistency in a general viewpoint is important. If you have a certain general view of the world, then don't switch horses all the time, and compose articles that reflect your real stand on issues. If you get blasted for your views...oh, well. Take it on the chin and keep going.

I believe doing these things will bring consistency to columns by the better writers here. I hope.

Frankly, I don't read the articles that much, though I make an exception for mbrennan's stuff. I came here to get a wider net of news that just the AP wire. I've found a few members who seed stuff that I'm interested in and I check with them often. I seed stuff that I find interesting that also isn't mainstream stuff. I don't get a lot of responses, but I figure it gives someone an idea of where I'm coming from. I like getting to know folks in this way.

Holy meta-vine!

Great contribution, Killfile. You make a convincing argument against what direction the Internet is taking. Keep in mind, though, that the Internet has only recently been opened to the public. It still has a lot of time to prove its worth, and I sense improvement with almost every new social website. I'm a bit more optimistic for the future of social networking and Web 2.0 in general. If you're interested, I've written my first opinion article, Cultivating intellectual discourse on the Internet, which takes an opposing stance on what you're arguing by suggesting possible ways of reducing nonsense and demanding substantial user contributions.

Perhaps this would be a good way to talk about the 'liberating' as well as the 'repressive' tendencies of sociable web media. Technology plays a central role, as it can encode desire,set the parameters and regulations for its actualization code.
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cynthia jacquline