17 May 2009
What's a social media expert?
21/05/09 11:48 Filed in: Social
networking practice
There is some excellent sense in this blog entry from Joanne Jacobs
about social media experts. I come across them
often - people who claim expertise in social
networking and then when you ask for a bit more
depth they go all shy and - whisper it gently -
you realise just how little they can do.
The reasons for this include the fact that anyone can style themselves as an expert, and believe me journalists can be the worst. Jacobs makes this point and criticises people whose only experience is as a journalist. I have to defend my corner a little here as I’m writing a book on social networking and in my view ‘a writer who can make this comprehensible’ is just the chap for such a job.
It would be good if there were some sort of accreditation scheme for experts. You could have different levels of expert - I’d be very pleased if my own pockets of knowledge of the field could have some sort of qualifier like ‘follower and expert commentator’ whereas Jacobs and her ilk might come out as ‘consultant for coal-face social networking’, for example.
If something like that doesn’t happen soon then Joanne’s first complaint - that critics constantly carp at social media experts because their expertise can be so questionable, is going to become a truism rather than a revelation. It’s a bit like being a consultant I suspect - until someone asks what exactly you mean by that there’s no way of telling a brain surgeon from someone who does really low-level unqualified stuff.
The reasons for this include the fact that anyone can style themselves as an expert, and believe me journalists can be the worst. Jacobs makes this point and criticises people whose only experience is as a journalist. I have to defend my corner a little here as I’m writing a book on social networking and in my view ‘a writer who can make this comprehensible’ is just the chap for such a job.
It would be good if there were some sort of accreditation scheme for experts. You could have different levels of expert - I’d be very pleased if my own pockets of knowledge of the field could have some sort of qualifier like ‘follower and expert commentator’ whereas Jacobs and her ilk might come out as ‘consultant for coal-face social networking’, for example.
If something like that doesn’t happen soon then Joanne’s first complaint - that critics constantly carp at social media experts because their expertise can be so questionable, is going to become a truism rather than a revelation. It’s a bit like being a consultant I suspect - until someone asks what exactly you mean by that there’s no way of telling a brain surgeon from someone who does really low-level unqualified stuff.
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Liking this new iPadio toy
18/05/09 12:50 Filed in: Social
networking practice
I’ve been playing with this new iPadio thing
that allows you to ‘phlog’, or
‘phone blog’, again. It’s going to
be a useful tool for a lot of people. Here’s an
interview with their new chairman:
It took seconds to put that into this website and this and other services like it are going to change the way a lot of people blog and particularly podcast. No, it’s not great for editing afterwards so you have to do a competent interview first time around if it’s going to sound slick, but this - as compared to, for example, the otherwise-excellent Audioboo - works on any phone because the coding etc. is done at iPadio’s end.
My guess is that this and competing services are going to lead to a lot more audio content on a lot more blogs, very quickly.
It took seconds to put that into this website and this and other services like it are going to change the way a lot of people blog and particularly podcast. No, it’s not great for editing afterwards so you have to do a competent interview first time around if it’s going to sound slick, but this - as compared to, for example, the otherwise-excellent Audioboo - works on any phone because the coding etc. is done at iPadio’s end.
My guess is that this and competing services are going to lead to a lot more audio content on a lot more blogs, very quickly.