Ncomment is back with his second installment of his WAR series. Reddit has invaded the world of Digg and sent Diggers into hiding to plan a revolution against the alien and robotic army of Reddit invaders. With division of Diggers at an all time high, the Reddit army was able to invade the Digg city and bring it to its knees in a single day.
Ncomment has been able to perfectly capture the political and social issues surrounding social media in his comics since the time they were first introduced. Somehow, he’s hit the nail on the head each time. If you look carefully at his comics, some things are subtle and others not-so-much. Not only does he capture social media issues, he also includes avatars and logos of well-known publications and social media users.
From TechCrunch Candy Bars, BuzzEdition Beer, The Drill Down Bilboards, Nowsourcing street signage, and The Huffington Post Copy Center, Ncomment has been spot-on. WAR part 2 is packed with social media references and well known sites. Mixx.com has become a refugee camp where Lt. General Panda has begun work on his ultimate weapon (powered by bacon) while the Social Blend news van is parked out front. We even get a look at the Holy Grail itself — the Digg algorithm.
So how does he do it? Ncomment applies one of the best known rules of the Internet, #32, “Lurk Moar.” And boy does he lurk. Only by doing so has he been able to capture the essence of social media so perfectly — its users. He engages them, gets to know them and then folds them perfectly into his comics. He even takes a stab at Ashton Kutcher and his Twitpics. No one is safe.
WAR Part 2 hit the Digg Front Page and was met by rave reviews of Diggers and Redditors alike.
“Best thing I have seen on Digg all week! LMAO!” says Digger Sexualwasabi.
“I saw this headline and I honestly thought, ‘please God let this be ncomment’ – very well done!” says Jaybol.
WAR Part 2 has been eagerly awaited by social media enthusiasts, more so than the New Moon movie by teenage girls. Ncomment delivers, and we can’t wait for Part 3.
We’ve all seen it. What once worked in social media six months ago doesn’t work now. Why, for instance, does a large following on Twitter no longer indicate influence? Or why is blogging no longer as impressive as it was in 2003? Both these examples follow a predictable economic formula:
As “x” social behaviour multiplies, its social value approaches zero.
Let me break that down for you. The more you do the same thing, people’s appreciation of it lessens. The more you do the same song and dance, don’t be surprised if your audience dwindles. This should be obvious, but it’s not.
LiveJournal: An Example
Most of us think of LiveJournal as the walking corpse of the social media world, but it wasn’t always so. It was one of the first platforms to combine blogging with social networking. More fascinatingly, people who had a LiveJournal felt it gave them status: in order to have one, you had to be invited.
Then it happened. Danga Interactive, LiveJournal’s parent company, removed the invite requirement. Soon everyone who wanted one could have one. This was the beginning of the end.
The problem was everyone wrote about the same things: breakfast, cute kittens, and favourite movies. LiveJournal succeeded in the task of being a journal, but as the novelty of public journalling wore off, so did its perceived value. Soon, users left LiveJournal for the unique feature set of MySpace — and we all know what happened to MySpace.
State of the Social Media Union
Most popular social media tools have their time in the sun then go through a slow rigor mortis. Usenet was once the reason people paid for Internet. Chatrooms were how people dated online. MySpace was a “place for friends”. What happened?
Everyone was doing it, and everyone was behaving the same way. Usenet became so burnt out over flame wars, the term “troll” was coined and “Godwin’s Law” became a law. The acronym “ASL” became such an overused greeting in chatrooms, their very purpose became sexual gratification. As for MySpace, “making friends” became the basis of many a Catch a Predator episode.
We are seeing the same pattern of behavior happen on Twitter, Digg, and Facebook — and if people keep doing the same things, those social networks will soon have less social value than they currently have now.
How Can We Add Value?
The social media slide into rigor mortis is not inevitable. The only way to reverse the lessening of social value is to give your audience value. That is to say, behave in a different way from everyone else. If a platform is flexible enough for innovative forms of communication, and if communities are courageous enough to move beyond their own cliches, social media can thrive.
Want to remain relevant in social media? Behave differently.
As a known Social Media enthusiast, I’m privy to a ton of information. I stand on the sidelines of various Social Media realms and watch as drama unfolds. I find that it’s usually the best thing to do when two opposing forces in Social Media go head to head. It’s not that I’m disloyal, don’t get me wrong, but rather that I prefer to not get involved. “Jay not get involved? Since when is Jay a pacifist? I thought Jay was a Marine!” Well, yeah, I choose which battles to fight, especially when it comes to elite Diggers throwing down on each other.
I refuse to name names, that wouldn’t be classy of me. I am, however, going to give a run down on how the battle has been fought; it’s actually been quite interesting.
It all started with Google. Yeah, you heard right, Google. Google has been posting Sesame Street / Google Logos all week to celebrate Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary. As anyone who is an internet junkie knows, Google tends to do this sort of thing to celebrate milestones or holidays.
One Digger, with a good ratio I might add, had been placing these images on his site, and submitting the new image each day to Digg from his site. Another Digger saw it but had also submitted the image directly from Google. The first Digger (Digger A) cried Dupe! In doing so he went after the other Digger (Digger B) and reported the image to Digg. Well, things got real nasty.
Name calling ensued in a chat and before you know it Digger A got Digger B banned. A fine line was crossed in the whole ordeal. Digger A was posting the images on his site, some people calling him out for “Blogspam,” but he considered the images a place holder as Google would change them everyday. Digger B, being an old school Digger, had linked to the original source. Digger A did not care, he was mad over the whole dupe ordeal. Things escalated sverely after that.
With the banning of Digger B, being an old school Digger, things did not look well for the upstart. I even shot a friendly warning to Digger A. “Hey man, he is old school, watch your step, his loyalties run deep.” I guess my warning fell on deaf ears. The name calling and threats continued. Digger A then lashed out at other people in the chat who were making lighthearted jokes about the situation. With a line in the sand already drawn, my advice would have been not to upset everyone else.
Elsewhere, other old-school Diggers heard of Digger B’s banning at the hands of Digger A. Things do not look well for Digger A. Yesterday his account was banned from Digg, his site is under DDOS attack, a satire blog has been erected to forever mock him and a lot of people in the Social Media Community are upset with him.
You guys still with me on the whole A/B thing?
Many mistakes were made during this dis-agreement.
1. If you do have an issue with someone’s submission, especially a dupe, approach the individual who duped you. If the individual will not take down his submission, make a friendly game out of. (Okay, first one to the FP wins, loser buys a beer at next meet up.)
2. Social Media or Social News Sites are just that, Social! Play well with others. Do not soil your name and give yourself a bad reputation.
3. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Sound familiar? It should. Same rules apply to any war if you expect to win. If you do have a rival, find out his mistakes and exploit them if need be, but it must be done in a way that keeps you squeaky clean. Name calling and bashing only makes you look bad.
4. KNOW YOUR ENEMY! Good Intel is always key to winning any war. Know who is loyal to them and their amount of influence. Crossing one person could mean crossing more people than you realize.You must also know the level of your rivals technical skill — there are a lot of good hackers out there. Do your homework!
5. Be prepared to defend yourself and your brand. A good defense is also a great offense.
6. Never, Never, Ever, write a check your butt can’t cash. If you have to resort to threats, make sure you can carry them out. Empty threats make you lose credibility.
Hopefully you should never have to deploy any of these tactics. Just like real life, most small conflicts can be settled using a good attitude, and a little respect.
With us today is the Daniel Honigman, part of the social media team that’s responsible for Colonel Tribune, a persona formed for the Chicago Tribune. Thanks for joining us.
1- Give us some background about yourself.
My background is in reporting and traditional journalism. Right now, I work as a social media strategist for Tribune Interactive (Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, etc.), where I work on ways to build local and national communities around our content. I also help evangelize the use of Web 2.0 tools in the newsroom.
2 – What was the aha moment at Tribune that lead to the establishment of the Colonel? Is the team full-time dedicated to social media, or is it incorporated with other duties?
When I started with the Chicago Tribune, I looked at people’s touchpoints with the digital brand, and I saw that while there were some traditional ways people could reach the paper, including via e-mail, there was nothing to inspire the local digerati, really.
I thought about Facebook pages, YouTube pages and Twitter, and seeing that someone had already reserved @ChicagoTribune on there — it was an RSS feed — Bill Adee and I decided to create something, and we settled on Robert McCormick, an historic figure in Tribune lore. We built out a persona for the ChicagoTribune.com and, all of a sudden, we had our Colonel.
3 – Is this a fad? Surely there’s a beginning and end to things, but as web ambassadors, does social media seem like a worthy investment for the Chicago Tribune with long-term benefits?
From what we’ve seen, just from a traffic perspective, social media is worth the effort. But I believe that for local news organizations, it’s essential to create one-on-one connections with people in your market. But social media is something that all mainstream media should embrace, because it’s only going to get tougher and more cluttered out there.
4 – How does The Tribune use social media, and do you see it as a threat to your business? Many fear that blogging killed the journalist. Your thoughts?
It’s not a threat to the business. Traditional media has sold on a CPM model, but for mainstream media to survive, it has to think outside the box. As an industry, look for more aggregation.
But for newspapers to survive, they need to ratchet things down for a bit. If anything, blogging has been a shock to the journalism system. But journalists still have skills that many bloggers just don’t have: access and accuracy. They just need to embrace the 24-hour news cycle and, I believe, be format-agnostic.
5 – You’ve had some successes through social media, such as being able to report a bomb threat. Care to elaborate on the experience or share some others?
Just having a line to the social space can bring you all sorts of information that you may not have had before through traditional channels. As reporters cultivate their beats in real life, social media can help them tap into sources and audiences they never knew existed for their work.
The reason the Colonel got the tip, however, is that he has the reputation of a man who knows what’s going on. And if he doesn’t, he can try to find out. Not many people have that sort of connection with their hometown newspapers.
6 – What has the Chicago Tribune’s social media team found to be the best ROI sites for it’s efforts? What sort of strategies seem to work the best/least?
When we find them, we’ll tell you. The great thing about social media is that there’s no one right way to do it. Everyone’s feeling their way around the space right now, and it’ll probably continue to be that way for a while.
7 – Do you use any tools to monitor people submitting their articles to social media? How do you attempt to monitor your brand in social media?
Metrics are the Holy Grail of social media. Right now, I look at referrals, number of friends in different networks, number of brand mentions in different spaces, some direct feedback and the amount of conversation going on — both about the Chicago Tribune and about Colonel Tribune.
8 – Have you had any negative backlash from the self promotion? Example – when looking at the Colonel on Digg, 9 of the last 10 submissions were Chicago Tribune articles. We’ve seen in many cases that if a Digg user only submitted stories from a single source to which they are clearly connected, they would be flagged as a spammer, even if it was Techcrunch, Cracked or Ars Technica. In fact about the only person who can get away with submitting all his own content is Kevin Rose. Comments?
The thing about anything in social bookmarking sites is that if your content is good, it has a good chance get popular. Period.
But it’s not just about the content; you have to find other ways to contribute to these online communities, whether it’s submitting outside content, commenting on other stories or sharing other stories. It’s important to bring something else to the table and to show you’re willing to be a part of the group.
9 – Ok, so who would win in a fight – Colonel Tribune or Colonel Sanders?
Funny story: My girlfriend Mollie’s grandfather opened the first KFCs here in Chicago, so he and Colonel Sanders were good friends, actually. But I still think Colonel Tribune would win. Colonel Tribune has a pretty big posse, you see.
It was an interesting week with plenty of drama, humor and even an engagement. We even managed to get nepotistic; who knew we actually read each other’s stuff? There are a few post for the Diggers, SEO types and even some analytics mixxed in for good measure. All in all plenty of good reading for those you you that simply can’t get enough!
People like to talk about social media sites in terms the amount of traffic sent by getting on the front page, backlinks, profile backlinks, and passing pagerank.
Today, we’re going to have a little fun with it. We’re going to take the web 1.0 metric of time on site and go a little more touchy feely with it for a web 2.0 world. Trust me, this will be fun. Here is a list of my top 5 favorite most addictive sites within social media. Perhaps they aren’t even my favorite, but rather that I can’t seem to get myself off of them
Plurk
There’s a reason that people are taking a long hard look at Plurk, some of them even migrating or at least spending more time there than on Twitter. Two words: Instant gratification. As if Twitter wasn’t instant gratification enough to type in 140 character points and responses, Twitter has fallen from some people’s obsession list as Plurkers seem heavily engaged, providing rapid threaded responses. It isn’t uncommon to see dozens of responses to a Plurk in 15 minutes – something you’ll never see on Twitter unless your name is Guy or Scoble. What’s worse (best?) is that Plurk’s karma, a key factor in its addictiveness, will actually go down if you’re inactive for a while. Oh, and don’t Plurk too much, the safe Plurking habits guide recommends no more than 30 Plurks per day. Brilliant.
Twitter
Once you’ve found interesting people to follow and have a following, Twitter is an awesome place. Also helpful is to be watching some search tools and have a good client (I’m big on using Twitterfox and Hahlo for the iPhone). It’s great for asking questions, looking for resources on a project, and keeping up with what people are doing.
Breaking news can often be found on Twitter as well. And yes, it has been criticized for its uptime performance – the same people that are hitting the refresh button every 2 minutes while Twitter is down Yeah, it’s that addictive.
StumbleUpon
It’s been around considerably longer than many people think. StumbleUpon is one of my favorite sites due to all the great finds I get through it. SU is a true discovery engine, something that if positioned correctly can give traditional search a true run for its money. StumbleUpon is doing something right, and people are taking notice. I’m a big fan of what they have done with SearchReviews (now in Yahoo as well), putting in your friends stumble ratings right on the SERPS.
Facebook
I know what you’re thinking. Facebook is for kids. It’s annoying. It invades my privacy. Say what you will, but with facebook chat, a few addictive apps, and seeing people on there that mainly stay off other social sites (read: have a life off the computer), Facebook is still a daily mainstay for me. It’s a great way to connect with people that you haven’t seen in years, and you can quickly get lost in time through all the possibilities.
Say what you will. Digg has its issues, but for me, it’s still something I’m checking out throughout the day. While Digg has its challenges and critics, it really is a great place to find a wealth of content (and finally has a new comment system). Yes, a lot of it is just funny/linux/apple, but there really is a lot of good stuff.
There are several others that just missed the list for me: Mixx, Reddit, LinkedIn and FriendFeed, just to name a few. Reason is that I’m finding with the demands of my total addict sites, I’m just not spending time on these other sites every day consistently.
Which social sites are you finding the most addictive?
This is a guest post by one of our Social Media Ninja winners
Social media is getting too popular – more and more effort is needed to get noticed there and make friends and fans. Beside being loyal, consistent, truthful, etc, etc, there is one proven technique to gain power within social media and your targeted community – that is “be everywhere at the same time.”
Yep, sounds impossible to do, but still can be achieved if you know some tricks. These very tricks are described below (when I was starting, I used them unintentionally without much thinking; so this is a reverse experience – I first did it and then saw that it worked):
1) Start at one network and then gradually spread your efforts to several more.
Most power social networkers tend to actively ‘socialize’ at several communities – so go ahead, find them there and befriend. They see you once, they see you twice - they know you already!
To find them:
- check their profiles (people usually link to their other profiles across social media):
– search Google for their names and profile names;
– visit their sites and find what other SM profiles they are linking to.
2) Brand your name and profile image – use one and the same name and avatar for each and every social network you join. Besides, use the same image
for guest posts and blog catalogues/directories. Images are highly associative and easy to remember – being consistent with your choice, you will soon see more and more people recognize you by it.
3) Promote blogs/threads where you actively participate: sphinn/digg/stumble your guest posts or articles where you comment. Thus people will first see your comment, then your (SU) review (or vice versa) – that’s it, they now remember you. When I started participating in SEOMoz community, I occasionally stumbled posts from there – and I was amazed how many people at SU added me to friends and messaged me asking about my SEOMoz activity.
4) Interlink your multiple profiles across social media. Once people get to know you at one network, they are most likely (if you do your homework well) to befriend you across all your common SNs (see #1). Thus you are simultaneously growing your power across several networks.
5) Always comment at posts/discussions where your name/website was mentioned. To do that you will need to subscribe to Google alerts for [your name], [your domain name] and [yourdomainname] to get updated each time you are talked about in the blogosphere. Also if you want to be the first to react to your name mentions, set alerts to update you “as-it-happens”.
All in all, these are 5 basic techniques that will quickly and effectively get people to remember you. With that and by consistently adding quality to the community you will soon see your social media power growing fast and your brand establishing and getting popular.
This post is inspired by Dave Gorman the UK comedian who is known in the UK for looking for other Dave Gormans amongst others and in America as the stats guy who occasionally appears on the Daily Show. Dave Gorman was recently featured in a TV show where he traveled across America only to make it far more fun he choose to travel without giving any money to “The Man”. “The Man” is the large faceless corporations that seem to be pandemic across the western world from Starbucks to Wal-Mart to IBM “The Man” is everywhere. If you haven’t seen the film or read the book go do so now!
So can you market a site without “The Man”?
Dave was on Radio 2 the other day (yes I am an old fart) promoting his book and he got me thinking with Tad’s ranting on Google doubled with people’s general dislike of corporations is it possible today to market your site without the aid of these large groups.
Well, let’s find out!
Domain names and websites
It’s actual impossible to create and market a website without giving to the man. Since the domain registration system is run by a large corporation and while ICANN the global governing body is a non-profit corporation in the US nearly every national registrar is a faceless corporation. However all is not lost and with a quick tweaking of the rules finding a mom and pop registrar which is reselling a big boy is possible. Hosting its still possible to find small hosting centres just remember to avoid the big boys 1&1, Pipex, etc.
Obviously the site itself can be hosted on good Linux systems and open source software, just remember to avoid Fedora (RedHat) and SUSE (Novell) one thing you might have not thought about your Feedburner, and Google Analytics will have to be put to one side.
Search Engines
Sorry these are all out, at least the big 3 indeed to be truthful to the goal we probably need to block them totally so out with your robots.txt file.
Without search engine traffic we will have to rely on other forms of advertising the obvious answer is social media!
No StumbleUpon
Sacrilege I know but life without the man includes life without StumbleUpon which of course is owned by Ebay it also means life with out PayPal again an Ebay company. Interestingly a quick search for ways to stop people sending traffic from StumbleUpon returned virtually no results but fear not we can use HTACCESS to send this unwanted traffic away.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} (stumbleupon.com) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.stumbleupon.com [R,L,NC]
Ok that’s sorted the StumbleUpon traffic it’s now being sent back to StumbleUpon of course thinking with our marketing head we perhaps would want to send it to a page explaining the idea of not getting traffic from “The Man” and with a link for them to find their way back!
Digg
Tricky one this is Digg owned by the man? I think not so it’s safe to market their maybe an article on how to block the evil corporations and “The Man” would go down well just a thought.
Propeller
No chance with it’s Netscape, AOL, Time Warner, Google owners this is clearly the sort of corporation we are looking to avoid so no Propeller traffic once again we will want to redirect users. Normally we would have to come up with some complex strategy to still gain benefits from these links to help our search engine strategy but for once this is not an issue as we blocked them at the start.
Myspace/FaceBook
Sorry News corp but you are the sort of people we want to avoid as for Facebook with a turnover of $15 billion according to Wall Street Journal and with investments from Microsoft and at least 3 major Venture Capital groups looks like your out to.
Looks like the man is pretty widespread but let’s not despair all is not lost we live in the age of web 2 where every kid and his programmer have an idea and the number of start-ups are immense it is still pretty easy to drive some traffic without going to the big corporations.
But why do it?
We are creatures of habit it is worth looking at other sources simply to have a backup strategy it’s also good to support new ideas what is new today may well be the norm tomorrow so it’s better to be in on the ground floor.
But the spirit of independent entrepreneur is being eroded once it was about coming up with a great idea marketing it and amazing people. Now its come up with a concept, get large venture capital company to fund your lunches with Google’s reps.
The next step
First off all I am not advocating giving up traffic sources, or blocking Google on your sites but I am passionate about supporting the little guys who are just like me. So I do plan on setting up a “Man” free site with the whole purpose of finding new traffic methods and ideas.
If you got any ideas or if you think that I was being lenient by claiming Digg was not “The Man” why don’t you let me know below!
p.s Dave Gorman book and DVD is available from his site and Good retailers as is his GoogleWhack stage show DVD (Not suitable for children) if you take nothing from this post go read the books and watch the DVDs!
We are here today with a distinguished guest that sits outside the realm of social media, but is rather a Political Science professor. (In fact, he was a professor of mine once upon a time). Before all of you think that I have lost my mind, let me explain further. Professor Patrick Regan is an expert in conflict management resolution and game theory, having authored several books including Organizing Societies for War, and the upcoming Sixteen Million One (excerpts found on his site). Thanks for joining us today, Professor.
1 – What do you think about social media in general?
Social media is new and fascinating to me. It is not a medium that I grew up with, so it is a bit harder to get use to, but I can certainly see how this forum for communication can fundamentally change the way people react to public problems. We can see this, for instance, in Tibet today. The Chinese government has overwhelming capabilities to suppress the Free Tibet movement, but the movement has what you refer to as the social media on its side. China quickly tried to shut down as much of this as possible. China is not alone is recognizing the immense power of the social media, as political campaigns today will attest.
One of the downsides – if there really are downsides – to this medium is that conventional forms of communication get marginalized. At first this shows up as loss of profit, of which I am little concerned, but without of viable free and open conventional press we will suffer from the potential abuse by those in power. At least in the short term there needs to be some balance. The unfortunate inclination is for conventional media to respond to the challenge posed by the social media by consolidating and brining less and less variability and initiative into the conventional media. Sounds like doom and gloom, and in the end the more open media will win.
2 – You might not have drawn a parallel of your field of expertise with social media in the past, but I believe there to be striking similarities between social media and game theory, more specifically the prisoner’s dilemma. Cooperation (friending users) is key. What is your take on this?
Game theory provides for us a way to think about choices, how choices are made under certain types of constraints. Your expected payoffs from some action matter a lot, and how you conceive of your expectations and the value of the outcome is a function of information. Game theorists ask questions about how resolved the actors are to press for their preferred outcome, and the like. Cooperation is a bit more difficult if both sides are committed to getting their way, and game theory can show us why. We also know from game theory that the frequency with which we expect to replay the game matters a lot. If it is a one off game, just do what is best for you. But if you’re going to see this person again, then cooperation might be a better strategy. I think this is what you mean by ‘friending users’ – though I bet that word is not in the Webster’s dictionary! The more information we have about those we interact with the more opportunity we have to shape outcomes that are mutually beneficial. Now in principle, if you have a lot of information – at least if it is one-sided information – then there is the opportunity to coerce or exploit as well. A free, open, unregulated social media portends to reduce one-sided information and increase the frequency of interactions over ideas.
3 – There has been a great deal of controversy in the largest social news site, digg.com in which many of the top site contributors were planning a revolt and were getting ready to organize on a live podcast. Toward the end of the podcast, the founders of Digg came on to directly address the crowd and respond to their questions. Typically, Digg has not been very responsive to its users as of late. Do you feel that the Digg founders resolved the conflict in an effective manner?
I am not an expert on Digg.com, though I have read a bit about the revolt. Compromise borne of concessions approaches a necessary condition for a negotiated settlement. Absent concessions, stable outcomes pretty much have to result from a disparity of power, and therefore from coercion. The very first concession in any bargaining environment is the agreement to discuss. By implication if you agree to discuss then you agree that there is some point on which you would give. It might not be enough to settle the dispute, but the recognition is one that implicitly points to the potential for movement. As I gather it the Digg folks did this. Did they come all the way across the table? Not to my knowledge. One way to think of this is that they don’t see it as what we would call an iterative game, but rather each move is a one shot deal. My sense is from reading about this is that the contributors see this as a repeated game. They want compromise and the Digg folks want to coerce behavior.
The protest might be one way to demonstrate that repeated plays are valuable, and maybe the norm. But the protesters also have to realize that successful negotiations most often require concessions from both sides. They can’t expect to be completely coercive any more than they would accept that from Digg. The real key would be demonstrating to Digg that they get a better outcome if they see this as a repeatedly played game or interaction.
4 – More on Digg. The following month, there was a Digg Town Hall event in which the founders had a live webcast where questions could be asked (although they had a list prior to the show, so live participants were not given true voice). Was this an effective method?
It seems that it is effective if both sides play the game. It might not be how I would organize a negotiating session to sort this out, but it sounds to me like some of the contributors bought into it. Better, maybe, to offer to bring an agenda to the table around which discussions or negotiations can take place. By what I understand of this relationship the contributors participate on Digg.com for the personal sense of value (I get my views out there); Digg.com folks do this either for a job or the potential to sell it to a start up venture, that is take it commercial. The contributors would have to demonstrate that Digg.com has no value without the contributors, but also to show that they value Digg.com over the long haul.
Maybe you should all try to get a mediator to sit down with you to work this out. Seems pretty simple on the face of it.
5 – One of the key elements in trying to resolve conflict is the underlying assumption that both sides are rational. Do you think that both sides of the fence are being rational here?
Rationality refers to cost benefit maximization. It could be that the Digg folks are under some sort of constraint to diversity their portfolio of contributors so that they can set this up to be more commercially viable (I’m just guessing). If that is so, then they might be acting rational by compelling diversification. The Contributors might also be seeing their personal viability being challenged by the new constraints on making the headlines. Both can be considered rational in a maximization framework. Is there middle ground? Sure seems like it to me. It almost seems like people aren’t explaining motives and with a clear idea of why each side is being so resolute, concessions might actually be easy.
6 – For those that are not familiar with the prisoner’s dilemma, can you expound on it a bit and how you think it falls within the social media world?
Prisoners dilemma is just a way to think about how choices are made. In the dispute with Digg it is whether to open the process up to the most prolific and interesting or creating diversity. This is a bit like cooperating and defecting in the prisoners dilemma game.
To my mind the idea of a prisoners dilemma is useful for many types of social interactions, the social media might be but one. We use to use it to understand the arms race, the ending of civil wars, and the like. It is really just a way to think about the value of cooperation over defection, and under what conditions can both side rationally conclude that doing the “wrong” thing is right. Everyone knew the nuclear arms race was silly, but both sides went happily down that silly path, and appeared quite rational in doing so. Funny how the world works!
7 – Do you think that social media may one day find its way into your political / game theory teachings? How would you see something like this come about?
I teach a lot about Osama bin Laden this semester and I suspect that much of his communication might fall under what you would describe as the social media. So if his form of communication meets such standards, then the world’s most sought after villain is making great use of social media. But I think I’ll leave you and your readers to figure out whether he is leading, following, or uninvolved with social media.
Thanks for stopping by, Professor Regan – you’ve been a wonderful guest!
It has been a pleasure.
If you would like to see more about Professor Regan, here is an interview he did after doing research for his latest book:
Just released yesterday, Mixx has stepped up its growing social news site, now adding the ability to message other users within the site. Chris McGill spoke about these features being on the Mixx roadmap in our earlier interview with him. From the Mixx blog:
Mixx Mail Phase 1: Now you can send and receive messages to and from anyone in the community without ever leaving the Mixx. Mixx Mail offers some very handy little features, including:
* The icons of all Mixx friends in your address book—especially useful if you’re like us and remember faces/avatars better than names.
* Send a message to a Mixxer directly from that user’s profile page.
* Block overeager wanna-be groupies. That’s right—not only can you slam the door on their friendship pleas, but now you can block them from sending messages, not that you’d be so cruel. Right? Well ok then, just don’t block us.
* Opt to have a daily digest sent to your regular email and we’ll let you know how many messages you have waiting.
The recognizability that an avatar brings is taken into account here, as shown below:
There is also a new release on group message boards, a handy addition that Mixxingbowl, the unofficial Mixx forum, doesn’t entirely address.
These are welcome features and should certainly improve usability on the site.
Traffic is Still Mixx’s Weak Point
When you compare Mixx with a Niche Pligg-based site like Sphinn, the result is disappointing: even with a large spike in November/December, its visitor numbers have barely risen. Let’s look back at our own home-brew of those events, Google Trends like style:
To put things into perspective we can’t show you the graph between Digg and Mixx as Mixx visitor numbers are so tiny it’s barely more the a straight line. So instead let’s compare it to a large Social Media Blog like Dosh Dosh Keep in mind that Compete.com numbers are to be taken with a pinch of salt but they are a good guide to trends and Mixx seems to be stuck in the mud.
On the flip side, social media is not just about numbers but reaching the right numbers. Mixx is developing its own diverse crowd, many of whom are active Stumblers and Diggers, making it a great spot to promote material that is ultimately aimed at these audiences.
Mixx as a site is technologically ahead of the game, its owners are well known and are in touch with their user base and their accountants. The question remains: is a business model based on poaching users a successful one? Can Mixx gain the traction needed to get out of the mud and when is there API coming?
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