Session 2, Table F - Social Networking and Projects

The second session of the conference included a session on Social Networking and News. During the session, participants discussed several levels of the relationship between social networking and the news, including:

-Social Networking as traditionally understood

-Social Networking as it occurs online

-Social Networking websites

-The connection of social networking websites to news

There are a number of websites that allow the posting of news content and then the ranking of particular contributions by users/the audience (e.g., www.digg.com). Some users follow the contributions of a particular poster, some trust the content voted most highly by the larger audience.

In these cases, most of the content posted is not actually user-generated. Participants noted the lack of user-generated content, particularly at the local level.

Questions generated by this session included:

-is audience ranking better than what an editor does? in some instances and not others?

-how do we evaluate social networking beyond just links or hits? How do we know these are “meaningful” connections?

-what is the relationship between online and offline social networking?

-what is the role of trust and credibility in online social networking and/or news?

-is credibility transferable?

-how similar is the relationship of a community member to an online news site to the relationship between community members who are friends?

Other session included: Net Neutrality; Monolith v. Portal; What is “news”?; Narrowcasting v. Broadcasting; Website Projects.

What is social networking? Different online versus offline and how does this impact news?

MySpace Facebook - is YouTube? Yes.

Digg.com - what is it and critical of it - what if everything that you're exposed to is majority-driven rather than editor driven? It is both.

Social rules - does this happen the same way online?

Expected future interaction.

Groups are social action.

Trust in social network - very important. IDs shared.

Credibility. eBay.

Accountability and anonymous.

Viral marketing? Cheap form of advertising?

Offline vs. online social networks -- does it change? People that are social networking online do more offline too. These are multimedia communicators anyway.

Do MSM want to be "friends" with readers? Ideal place for newspaper to read when your readers evangelize for you.

Create a social networking news site - with subscription so you pull in.

Loyalty with advertisers. SB example - tough market, advertisers are not sophisticated but community is.

What about blogging journalists? Interactivity. But it is just like call-in radio shows.

Reduce barriers.

Social networking is an important concept - components and aspects match.