It’s not ready for public consumption yet, and the iPhone app will be available through iTunes.

The program seems to be an internal social media tool and with project management elements. It will be interesting to see the final product. I think it’s something that could be quite useful for most companies.

Edmonton social media community expanding

We started out our discussion about social media in Edmonton by watching a CTV story about Twitter, with several Edmontonians featuring prominently in the story.

Media interest in Twitter has grown substantially in Alberta, particularly in Edmonton lately. Many media organizations have jumped on board and are now experimenting with the medium.

With this media interest there has been curiosity among its viewers and consumers, and according to Mack Male, the number of Twitter users in Edmonton has grown by 50 per cent over the last month. Nice!

Social media community changing?

Edmonton has a vibrant social media community and we’re quite friendly. There was a question whether this will change as time goes on and the community grows. One thought was that instead of meeting as one large group as often happens, people will begin to gather in smaller groups.

There were some comments about people joining Twitter and billing themselves as social media experts or social media gurus. Typical hype. Kind of hard to bill yourself as a social media expert when you’ve been on Twitter for a week, nobody’s following you and you’ve Tweeted a couple dozen times.

One person who could legitimately bill himself as a social media expert in Alberta is Walter Schwabe (@fusedlogic). There aren’t many in Alberta, but the number is growing across Canada. Mack Male’s another one here in Edmonton.

Mainstream media and social media

My favourite part of the discussion was also one of the more contentious ones. Recently mainstream media organizations have been going through a lot of difficulty due to the recession. There seems to be some glee in social media circles about their difficulties.

Mainstream media in Alberta is beginning to join the social media community, and Edmonton’s media especially. It’s obvious they’re quite new to the medium and are having a few growing pains. Who hasn’t though? I’m willing to give anyone new to Twitter the benefit of the doubt, except for spammers or the instant social media experts.

My only observation is that Alberta media organizations seem to have jumped into the game without much of a social media strategy. I could be wrong. I they think they could use an effective social media strategy to cut their learning curve and increase their social media impact.

Continuing the discussion about social media

We again made our way to Brewster’s Pub in Oliver Square for drinks and discussion. I had reserved for 15 people but we had many more people than that. Not bad for a Monday night!

We were lucky to have Alberta MLA Doug Griffiths join us at Brewster’s. He’s also on Twitter as @GriffMLA. The Alberta government has made a strong push to get involved with social media. It was good to hear Doug’s perspective on it. He said he’s had lots of good feedback on the Alberta government’s social media efforts. On a side note, I thought it was interesting that he was on the CBC show The Week the Women Went.

It’s interesting because there’s been kind of a long running conversation on Twitter about breaking news and the mainstream media. Twitterers have been trumpeting their successes in breaking stories, leaving traditional media flatfooted. Twitter users have also taken some photos that mainstream media could never hope to get on the spot.

Smart phones with digital cameras mean that anyone can break news. It’s impossible for the media to compete with that, and the mainstream media will admit they just can’t break that kind of news as quickly.

The US Airways crash on the Hudson River photo is a classic example of how quick Twitter can be.

That’s fine in our instant gratification culture, but I think there are a lot of people on Twitter who fail to see the benefits of mainstream media. Twitter, in its construct, is limited to 140 characters per message. There’s no depth to it. You may witness a shooting, bombing or accident, but you are an observer, for what it’s worth. You can’t delve much beyond what you’ve witnessed and experienced.

My friend Patrycja Romanowska (@kamazonka) wrote a very good piece on the troubles in mainstream media recently. She pointed out that those in social media who deride mainstream media organizations tend to forget that the news is reported by those media organizations in the first place.

We’re not just referring to a Twitter user witnessing a plane crash, but to reporters sitting in dull city council meetings and reporting on what’s going to happen to your property tax bill next year, or attending a police press conference, etc.

So, if you’re one of the new media people inclined to gloat over the apparent death of mainstream media, keep in mind where you get the news to comment on in the first place.

This is not to say that people on Twitter can’t break news more quickly, but to understand the limitations of the medium. Twitter has as much depth as a mud puddle, but it is miles wide. You can’t beat its reach. If you want to understand what’s happening, you just won’t get it on Twitter. You need to go to print media, online or off, to get that depth.

Edmonton media on Twitter

I think it’s great to see many local media people getting on Twitter to see what it’s all about (Global Edmonton, Edmonton Journal, iNews 880). I’m sure they’ll find ways to leverage Twitter to help get their story out, and good for them. Twitter is excellent for that and I’ve noticed that when people become aware of local media personalities getting online, they get a large following on Twitter fairly quickly.

I find that fact interesting. If the mainstream media is apparently so irrelevant these days, why are so many on Twitter interested in following them and talking to them? It would seem that there’s more interest in mainstream media than you might hear on Twitter.

Not bashing Twitter

Having been a member of the media and a Twitter advocate, I really understand both sides of this issue. I also understand the limitations of mainstream media and the Twitter medium.

I love Twitter and find it to be an extremely useful tool. I know that I can find basic information out quite quickly on Twitter. Twitter excels at quickly pointing you towards important resources on almost any issue you can think of. Newspapers are where I find depth of understanding and can really learn more about all aspects of important issues.

While mainstream media is experiencing a great deal of difficulty lately, I’d attribute those difficulties more to the current economic situation and the reluctance of management to really take the Internet and social media as seriously as they need to. They’ve managed reactively and have jumped online, with the majority of media outlets not having quite figured it out yet.

So let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater and understand that Twitter and mainstream media are not a dichotomy. They can and will co-exist. You’re not going to wake up tomorrow and hear on Twitter that every mainstream media organization is now closed and your only source of information is online. I think some Twitterati would like that, but they live in a dream world.

Entering the social media with a strategy

I will be watching Edmonton media Twitterers to see how they use Twitter and experiment with it. Media organizations are smart to get involved in social media, but they should go in with a social media strategy to maximize the benefit they receive from it.

It’s easy for individuals to jump into Twitter and experiment, but large organizations should iron out some details and really understand the medium before they make the foray. It will save them a lot of headaches and make their efforts more effective.

Edmonton Social Web Meetup

At tonight’s Social Web Meetup, Edmonton’s expanding Twitter and social media community will be up for discussion, along with the media’s expanding presence on Twitter in Edmonton.

It should be an interesting discussion and I think it’s something that we could probably devote an entire Social Web Meetup to.

Get signed up on the Social Web Meetup page if you’re interested in going. It’s centrally located at NAIT at 7 p.m. and we head out afterwards to Brewster’s Pub at Oliver Square (104^th Ave and 116 St.).

Alain Saffel