Wow – people are really all a-buzz about mainstream media’s latest foray into the world of social media, eh? I’m seeing lots of different viewpoints and some great conversations. In fact, I’d say that social media is really showing it’s stuff right now – the community is out in full force, in one way or another, trying to figure out what it all means.

I have been a media producer, in some form or another, for going on 20 years. In my time, I’ve produced media (television, radio, print, advertising, marketing campaigns) for everything from high profile, mainstream media outlets to large corporations to mom and pop shops and local community cable. I feel fortunate that I’ve been able to witness first hand what is likely the single largest transformation in the way people communicate since the invention of the telephone.

With that said, I wanted to present my take on recent events within mainstream media and some of the social media community’s reaction to these events. I present here the dispelling of a couple of myths about mainstream media, based on my observations over the past several years. Please keep in mind that this is my opinion only. The purpose here is to state my position on the matter, and open up honest discussion about it. I invite you to dispel what I’m dispelling.

Myth #1. Mainstream Media Doesn’t “Get It”.
I’m seeing a lot of defensive behaviour coming out of the social media crowd in the past few days. They are right on top of celebrities like Oprah and Kutcher, accusing them of ruining Twitter, using it as a broadcast medium only, and the one that really gets me – not understanding the “nuances” of social media.

It’s true that there are things people can learn about effectively using social media as a tool, and there are plenty of good, interesting, smart professionals out there helping people to figure it out. But anyone who thinks that a multimillion dollar corporation like Harpo has not done their homework before diving into social media with both feet is coming at it from the wrong perspective. The beef incident from a few years back, if nothing else, should prove that Oprah’s people most definitely have learned to do their homework. As for Kutcher and the rest of them, they’re all businesspeople too, with images to uphold, and a flurry of agents and publicists who have to damage control their careers if they say or do something stupid on the public stage.

Mainstream media doesn’t get it? I beg to differ in a big way. In fact, they may get it a lot more than many of us. We’ve been stuck for a long time in the same rut with social media, talking about the same stuff over and over. They are in part, starting to move the medium forward.

Myth #2. Mainstream Media is Missing the Boat.
Ooh! I love boat analogies. And my husband came up with a doozy last night. He said “Big media is an aircraft carrier. It takes a long time to turn a ship like that around.”

Let’s look at mainstream media in relation to the average social media superstar. Oprah has hundreds of millions of viewers for her TV show. According to Wikipedia, she gets 70 million page views per month on her web site. Social media superstars, even the really popular ones, are not working anywhere near that scale. Most are in the tens of thousands, and a few elite are in the hundreds of thousands.

What does that mean? Oprah’s driving an aircraft carrier. So is CNN. Your average social media superstar is driving a speedboat. He can turn on a dime. I’m not saying he’s not putting a great deal of thought into strategy and planning and image and all the rest. Of course he is. But big media is strategizing and planning and considering image too. The difference is, they are doing it on a much larger scale. They aren’t missing the boat. They are just driving a way bigger one than the rest of us. And once they get it turned around – and it’s about 3/4 of the way there in some cases – then the game is going to change for good.

So – I guess what this all means is – are you ready for things to start changing? Instead of defending the models that have been created over the past few years, how are you going to adapt your model to the changing tides? Or maybe you don’t think big media changes things at all. They’ve just shown up at the party, and are going to mix with the crowd.

What’s your take?

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I know I know I know.

I promised not to write any more posts about Twitter. But, one of the things I like to do on this blog, besides breaking promises, is talk about how new media is evolving. And Twitter, well, it’s kind of the evolutionary story of the year, or at least the month, so I thought it was worth talking about.

It’s finally happening. Twitter is being taken over by celebrities, the media won’t shut up about it, and the tech-geek early adopter community, who have been on Twitter since the beginning, are freaking out.

“Twitter’s going to jump the shark!”, “Twitter’s dead”, and “It’s game over!”, are just a few of the rumblings I’ve seen pass through my stream in the past few days. Some are being downright possessive about it, almost violated at the thought that that Kutcher guy or ol’ what’s her face Winfrey are going to somehow infringe on their ability to use the tool.

So, can we just stop this then?

I am the first one to admit, I love Twitter. That’s probably pretty obvious to most of you. I’m on it often and it’s been a source of close friendships, fun social times, and new business for me. I find it a very valuable addition to my social and work lives. I’m a fan, and I’m not planning to change that any time soon.

Twitter is changing, as we knew it would. Seriously, it was only a matter of time before the rest of the world caught on. But the way people use Twitter does not have to change. The reason is simple.

If you are in your early late thirties like I am, you probably remember those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, where you would read to a certain point in the book, then have to make a decision about where you wanted the story to go. You’d flip to the page of your choice, and continue reading. It was different every time. I loved those books. Never got bored of them.

Twitter is like that – it’s a “choose your own adventure” tool. What I mean is, even though Oprah and Ashton Kutcher and P. Diddy are making tons of noise on Twitter, even though millions and millions of people are following them and talking about them and so on, the fact is, YOU get to choose how you use the tool. YOU get to choose who you follow. YOU get to choose who you talk to, and what you talk about. If you want to follow 50 people, follow 50 people. If you don’t want to follow celebrities, just don’t follow them. If you want to unfollow someone because all they do is follow celebrities, then geez. Just unfollow them.

Choose your own adventure in this space. Nobody’s telling you that you can’t.

I leave you with the quote of the day, for anyone who thinks that they can make a million bucks shilling advice about social media tools. This is a tweet from my friend Bob Goyetche, and is reprinted with his permission:

RT @bobgoyetche: Today, the legions of Oprah-ites join Twitter – your twitter “expertise” = soon to be as valuable as teaching someone to browse the web.

But we all KNEW this day would come, didn’t we?

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I have a confession to make. I watch Oprah. I LIKE watching Oprah. It’s my unwind-from-a-long-day, think-about-something-completely-different, guilty pleasure. But at this moment, I’m glad, I watch Oprah.

For all you non-watchers out there, Oprah is doing something cool these days in the online media space. She is touting a new Book Club Book, called “A New Earth”, by Ekhart Tolle. I don’t usually pick up the Oprah books, but I have always been interested in spirituality and religion, so yes, I picked up the book. It hasn’t transformed my life yet but it raises some very valuable and interesting concepts that I’m willing to continue to explore.

But this post isn’t about the book. Do a Google for Ekhart Tolle and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of reviews. This post is about how she’s talking about the book. On March 3rd, she is hosting a “web event”, what is being called an “online classroom“. There, she and Tolle will discuss the book and take video, audio and text questions from the audience. The class will be running Monday nights (EST) over 10 consecutive weeks. As of yesterday, over 300,000 people had signed up.

What I find fascinating is how this is being implemented. If one wishes to sign up for the class (which is free, by the way), they go to oprah.com and sign up for an account (And it’s nice that you can opt out of all the newsletters, etc. up front). Then you just register for the class, and at 9pm EST on Monday, March 3 you tune in.

I was wondering how they were going to do this. 300,000 people (sure to AT LEAST double or even triple by next week) all logging on at the same time, can you say, crashy crashy? But today, they sent me an email prompting me to download and install the Move Networks media player onto my computer. Of course I went to check them out, and yah, these guys have pretty much got their #$*@ together. They offer superior quality (it’s spectacular) and a scaleable system that allows simultaneous streaming to millions of people at once with no crashy crashy. It also collects lots of data about the users – experiences, demographics, geography – all the juicy tidbits of information Oprah’s advertisers could dream of. They’ve got it down.

As far as interactivity goes, well, viewers can record video or audio questions, and submit text questions as well. There are discussion forums so that if you are not one of the lucky few that gets to actually talk to Winfrey and Tolle, you get to talk to each other about the class and the book.

Maybe I’m expecting too much, maybe not, but this seems to me like a pretty nifty idea. I’m sure it will be successful. 300,000 people, including celebrities like Jim Carrey and Valerie Bertinelli have signed up already. (The star factor will only make it more popular.)

This could be the beginning of a trend with mass-market broadcasting, possibly the beginning of true interactive television. And I’m so in. Maybe I’ll get a spiritual awakening, maybe I’ll just be entertained. Maybe I’ll get both. Say what you want, but if there is anyone that can move millions with online media, it’s Oprah. I’ll let you know how it goes – but then again, you’ll probably sign up too…won’t you.

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