I’m a former news guy, so I do know a little something about credibility. I had sources that would tip me off to things that were happening. I had some that would pitch me on items that were important to them. Over time, they would earn or lose credibility based on what they told me and how well it panned out. The key there is “over time,” implying a relationship of trust — and it has a powerful business application.
Yesterday, I heard from an acquaintance of mine in New York City. He happened upon the partial collapse of a building in SoHo, and was close enough to share an eyewitness account on Twitter.
BREAKING: PARTIAL COLLAPSE OF TRUMP SOHO BUILDING UNDER CONSTRUCTION. MAJOR CHUNKS RAINING DOWN ON STREETS
(Think of Twitter as a micro-blog and instant messenger that is friendly and compact enough to work on a cellphone.) He also found a way to upload a picture to his blog.
I’ve never met Peter Shankman in person. I met him through his blog, I’ve talked to him a few times and we’ve traded e-mails. Heck, I even helped him late one night when he was looking for information about the trains in San Francisco. But I’ve had enough interaction with him to know that he was onto something with the building collapse. In fact, I was able to alert my supervisors about the incident a full 15 minutes before the first cable news networks even sniffed the story.
Then late last night, while contemplating what I’d write for Now Is Gone, I got another Twitter message, this one from Jeremy Pepper:
Earthquake at 9.13 PM
That got my attention… and moments later I was able to confirm that everything was alright. It was only a 3.0 on the Richter scale. (This isn’t the first quake I’ve caught on Twitter before the news, either.) My social network is proving to be a source for newsworthy items long before they are mentioned in anyone’s news.
Faces and Curtains
Let’s contrast that to yesterday’s discussion about Wikipedia here at Now Is Gone. Not to rehash, but there are still issues about Wikipedia’s trust level. Most of the editors enjoy the protection of Oz’s Wizard, hiding their names, faces, and agenda behind a curtain of anonymity. Yes, it is nice to have hordes of free labor to work on your site. It’s not so friendly to business, and not as trustworthy, when those faceless minions can break you and you don’t have an opportunity to offer “truth” from a neutral standpoint.
The trick to social media is the “social” part. Just like every other aspect of business, it is who you know. Wikipedia might do really well in the search engines, and might just be good enough to write every term paper for the next ten years. But I don’t trust it blindly. I do trust the words of Peter and Jeremy, because we’ve established a baseline of credibility. The technology lets you “roll your own” sources and inputs — your judgment remains your filter about who to believe and who to reject.
Today, it’s even more than who you know. It’s what “the people you know” know.
(Ike Pigott regularly blogs at Occam’s RazR)
Very true, Ike. The catch, I think, is that there are many people out there who 1) like hiding behind the curtain and/or 2) are afraid to meet new people and then build a relationship with them. I don’t know if this is a result of society becoming more untrusting (how many people did you interact with way back when you lived in an apartment complex?), or an issue with controlling their lives/business/etc.
Thanks Ike. Certainly the proliferation of social media tools has only magnified the old adage that it is not what you know it is who you know. With so much information (and often misinformation) available to the masses, it is crucial to be able to filter the information we receive.
In a way, this concept extends the idea of social media in that the citizen journalist now plays the role of the traditional media. It used to be the job of a traditional outlet to be the filter–but now, that burden falls to each one of us.
Sounds like the Fifth Estate to me, not quite as credible, but an important source of information 😉