From an Ars Technica post today…
As they do offline, the more affluent tend to dominate civic and political life on the Internet. But a new Pew study suggests that could change.
Click here for the full piece.
An interesting take on Craigslist in Wired is now online.
From marketing guru Seth Godin today…
There was an attention drought for the longest time. Marketers paid a fortune for TV ads (and in fact, network ads sold out months in advance) because it was so difficult to find enough attention. Ads worked, so the more ads you bought, the more money you made, thus marketers took all they could get.
This attention shortage drove our economy.
The internet has done something wacky to this situation. It has created a surplus of attention. Ads go unsold. People are spending hours on YouTube or Twitter or Facebook or other sites and not spending their attention on ads, because the ads are either absent or not worth watching.
When people talk about the problem with free online, they’re missing the point. Free is creating lots of attention, but marketers haven’t gotten smart enough to do something profitable with that attention…
Big companies, non-profits and even candidates will discover hyperlocal, hyperspecialized, hyperrelevant… this is where we are going, and it turns out that this time, the media is way ahead of the marketers.
And many Front Porch Forum advertisers would agree.
In classic form, the Burlington Free Press published an unsigned editorial today following up a recent piece of its reporting. Topic? Local government should use online social media…
More communities throughout Vermont should make better use of social media if only to keep residents informed and engaged. More people are turning to online services such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to be informed (entertained) and connected.
Local governments must make every effort to be where the people are. The Free Press reports that connection is missing in many towns and cities. Many towns post information on their official Web sites. Some towns also monitor Web-based networks with a hyper-local focus — by streets or neighborhoods — such as Front Porch Forum. But these kinds of online tools are largely passive…
Yes, I agree that local government’s mission is well served when they make effective use of social media. But the reporting and conclusion about Front Porch Forum miss the mark. (In fact, here are two examples of past Free Press articles that reported just the opposite of today’s editorial… here and here.)
For example, in the City of Burlington, 40% of the households subscribe and nearly every city councilor, school board member, and state rep. uses the service. Most Neighborhood Planning Assembly steering committee members partake, as do almost all City departments. In all, 250 local public officials make use of Front Porch Forum in Chittenden County, our pilot region.
And their use of it is anything but passive. A call to City Councilors, like Joan Shannon or Bill Keogh in the South End, would have set the record straight. They, like many other public servants, make frequent use of FPF to engage voters about a wide array of issues.
Further, citizen use of FPF is certainly not passive… that’s who does all the postings… thousand upon thousand of messages are exchanged among clearly identified nearby neighbors through Front Porch Forum (as many of the Free Press reporters and editors should know from personal experience in their own neighborhoods).
“… these kind of online tools are largely passive” — that’s actually a better description of traditional media, e.g., a newspaper, where professionals provide nearly all of the content. On FPF, the content comes from your nearby neighbors.
Finally, “social media” consultants are a dime a dozen these days, and most are telling businesses, governments, nonprofits, etc. the same thing… get into social media and start screaming your message across many different platforms. Anyone deaf yet? It’s growing ever harder to get people’s attention and hold it, let alone to get them to contribute to a discussion. Gratefully, FPF is full of more than 15,000 local people, most of whom are tuned in and making a difference.
UPDATE: An update is posted above.
A guest post today from Front Porch Forum’s most recent hire, Jamie Seiffer. Take it away, Jamie…
For those of you familiar with De La Soul, y’all know that three is the magic number. For those of you unfamiliar, check this out. Three is the magic number for us because that’s how many pairs of tickets our friends at Higher Ground have graciously donated to Front Porch Forum. As a result, all of our neighbors (that’s you!) have the chance to enter a raffle for a FREE PAIR OF TICKETS.
Grammy award-winning hip-hop group De La Soul is performing at Higher Ground August 21. If you’d like a shot at a pair of tickets all you need to do is comment on this post.* You can post about whatever you want – how you use FPF, why you like De La Soul, an awesome show you’ve seen at Higher Ground, whatever – any comment gets you an entry into the raffle (limit one per person).
Here at FPF we use this blog to keep our neighbors (and everyone else in the blogosphere) up to date about Front Porch Forum happenings. These include unique success stories, updates about our progress/expansion, and fun raffles like this De La promo. La la la la lah, this is a D.A.I.S.Y. age.
*TO ENTER: Comment on this blog post below by 7 PM EST on Aug. 20. Comments on Facebook will not get your name in the hat… you must comment at http://frontporchforum.com/blog Winners will be selected at random on Thursday night and will be notified via the email address attached to your comment.
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more