Ode to the Smartphone… Sort of

The fourth post in our summer-intern blog series was authored by Samantha Hauser from Arizona State University. Posts by Forrest Hanson, Meaghan Davison and Kristen Marchus can be found here, here and here, respectively. Have at it, Samantha!

– Bri and Dave

My Blackberry and I have been together for about six months, and already I can’t imagine life without it. We do everything together: eat, sleep, work, watch TV, hang out with friends, you name it. When I’m lost, my smartphone is my compass. When I’m hungry, my phone finds the nearest restaurants and kindly sorts them by price, cuisine or customer ratings. My phone even helps me manage my workout routines and keep track of my calorie intake. But most of all, my smartphone has my back with social media. Nobody touches my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Skype or Gmail accounts without my phone finding out about it… And I mean nobody.

My phone works hard around the clock to keep me up-to-date with what’s going on in my little cyber universe, blinking, beeping and buzzing every time it sees some action. But lately I’ve been finding that I’m just as much a slave to my phone as it is to me. Each blink, beep and buzz is like a little teaser, begging for my attention. And the more it blinks, the more curious I become. Did my professor finally post the midterm grades? Did my boyfriend just text me? Maybe it was just my roommate responding to my wall post. It doesn’t take long for the uncertainty to overwhelm me, and I have to give in and pick up my phone.

Recently, I’ve had to consciously keep myself from rushing to check every notification my phone gives me. It’s not always appropriate to be staring at your phone, and I have to remind myself during these types of situations that I can check my phone as soon as a more appropriate opportunity presents itself. Otherwise, I end up responding to e-mails at the dinner table and checking Facebook in the shower.

But it’s not just my own internal pressure to stay connected that leads me into a state of mental anguish every time my phone’s little red light starts blinking. There’s an increasing pressure from the outside world to be connected and available 24/7. If I don’t answer a text message right away, I get another in five minutes that just says, “???” If I don’t respond to an e-mail within a few hours, I get a text asking, “Hey did you get my e-mail?”

Now I don’t claim to be an expert on corporate culture, but I know these concepts translate into the professional world as well. And with all of this pressure to stay connected coming from both work and home (often through the same laptops, phones and networks), I wonder if it will ever become too much.

The bottom line is that while being connected 24/7 is fun, it’s also exhausting. With every futuristic new tool my smartphone offers me, my life gets a little more complicated. At the moment, this constant flow of information into the palm of my hand is new and fun and exciting, but I sometimes wonder if — and when — the novelty will wear off.

What do you think? Will there ever come a day when we all throw in the towel and jump back on the Paleolithic bandwagon? Or will we always be slaves to the newest technological wonders that developers throw our way?

Related articles:

• Joel Stein goes off the grid for one day
• CNN examines why so many can’t unplug on vacation
• WebMD’s tips for “reclaiming your time and concentration” from your smartphone

Ryan Seacrest is addicted to his Blackberry, too! Here he talks about it with Larry King:

– Samantha

The Sunday Newspaper

The third post in our summer-intern blog series was authored by Kristen Marchus from Gonzaga University. Posts by Forrest Hanson and Meaghan Davison can be found here and here, respectively. You’re up, Kristen!

– Bri and Dave

I am convinced my love of the newspaper and current events began at a young age.  When I was growing up, one of my favorite parts of the weekend was reading the Sunday newspaper.  At first, I would skim the actual newspaper and then move on to my favorite part, the Sunday advertisements.  I loved looking at all of them, especially Target, Mervyn’s, Best Buy and the coupon specials.  Eventually as I grew older, I spent more time reading about current events and less time on the weekly ads, advice columns and horoscopes.

I have always loved the newspaper, but I became a certified “news junkie” during college.  I am a recent graduate of Gonzaga University, a private Jesuit university located in Spokane, Washington.  It has a small, beautiful campus and a very well known basketball team, but none of these things were my favorite part of my college campus.  My favorite part of Gonzaga was the free New York Times and Spokesman-Review newspapers for students.

Throughout college, I would read the free New York Times newspaper daily.  I would go into my classrooms early to sit and read.  When other students arrived for class, some would ask me, “Do you have to read the newspaper for a class?”  I don’t think I ever met another student who took full advantage of the free newspapers or who understood my personal interest in reading the news.  Sadly, almost every day stacks of outdated newspapers were recycled.

I believe my love for current events and the news was one of the many reasons I switched from studying business to a public relations major late in my sophomore year.  The more upper-division public relations classes I took, the more certain I became public relations was the field I wanted to pursue.  And after completing multiple internships, it has become obvious that a huge part of a public relations practitioner’s job involves reading and scanning the news for client, competitor and industry news.

Over the last couple of years, my news habits have migrated from the daily newspaper to the Internet and my iPhone.  I am a big fan of the free New York Times app, but also follow local news through the San Francisco Chronicle and Contra Costa Times websites.  But since graduating and moving back to the Bay Area, I have felt a void, as I no longer have access to the free newspapers.  On Sunday mornings, I do not like eating breakfast in front of my computer and checking out the weekly Target sales via the Internet.  I really miss having a physical newspaper in front of me.

That is why contrary to all the reports of newspaper circulation and sales dropping, I just ordered home delivery of The San Francisco Chronicle.  Newspaper and magazine circulation has been in decline for many years, while the popularity of the Internet and especially the iPhone and iPad apps have increased tremendously.  I am very interested to see how magazines and newspapers use these mobile devices to help restore circulation.  I am also certain that my now free NYT app, will not be free much longer.

Call me old fashioned, but I can’t imagine getting all my news via the Internet, Twitter and Facebook.  Don’t get me wrong, I also consider myself a fanatic of social media. While I am positive social media and smart phones are changing the way we connect with people, shop and learn about emergency situations, I also know that I will always love reading the actual newspaper.  This means tolerating the black ink on my fingers, going outside to get my own newspaper and dealing with wet newspapers in the winter, but for me it is totally worth it.

– Kristen

I’m Mark Zuckerberg and you’re not

Is Facebook the biggest modern business phenomena?  Look at the social network’s growth:

• 2006 – 9 million users
• 2007- 40 million users
• 2010 – 400 million users

And that 2010 number is the last one announced.  David Kirkpatrick, author of ‘The Facebook Effect’ says it’s probably 500 million by now, and he’s predicting 1 billion users by the end of 2011.

Can’t you hear Dr. Evil? One Billion Users…..

There’s been a lot of coverage lately on the most recent outcry over privacy, with charges that Facebook has evil control over your personal data.  But the cold hard fact is that with those numbers, it’s really a tiny percentage of Facebook users that are at all concerned.  Inside Facebook, they look back at the huge brouhaha when the Newsfeed came out, and it’s now the most popular feature.

Speaking at a recent Churchill Club breakfast in Silicon Valley, Kirkpatrick spent a fair amount of time talking about (and often defending) Facebook’s continuing strategy of building a platform based on genuine identity, and all the marketable information that comes with that mission.  Kirkpatrick was interviewed by Kara Swisher of AllThingsD, who had Zuckerberg hiding behind his hoodie at the recent D conference.

Social Media ROI: Socialnomics

– Dave

Web 2.0 Summit Replays

If you didn’t get a chance to attend or tune in to the recent Web 2.0 Summit (#w2s), check out the organization’s YouTube page for some great video footage from the event. John Battelle hosts in-depth interviews with executives from companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter, in addition to many, many others. Here are the Facebook and Twitter interviews, which I enjoyed.

– Dave

Cision Presents: “Twitter 101”

Yesterday Cision put on a “Twitter 101” Webinar, and compared to the plethora of virtual crash-courses that cover the same subject I have to say it was one of the best I’ve attended. The hosts (@storyassistant and @hksully) provided some great social-media statistics and didn’t waste time covering Twitter basics. They also focused on the business application and impact of all the presented content. Not too common!

Below are some notes from the Webinar.

Social media:

• Social networks/blogs are the fourth most popular online activity, coming in ahead of personal e-mail. The only three things that are more popular than social media are: search, portal sites and PC software that uses the Web. (Nielsen Online Study, March 2009)
• The biggest increase in visitors to social networks was in the 35-49 age range at 11.3 million people. (Nielsen Online Study, March 2009)
• 67 percent of the entire online community uses social networks. (Nielsen Online Study, March 2009)
• One-third of all time spent on the Internet is on social networks/blogs. (Nielsen Online Study, March 2009)

Twitter:

• @PRsarahevans created #journchat for improving interactions between journalists, bloggers and PR pros, a good example of personal branding.
• Look to @ocreggie for a great example of how to use a Twitter handle with multiple Tweeps while remaining transparent.
• Once you create a good core following (approximately 200) using the right tools, your number of followers will grow organically simply through the interaction that happens with those who are most relevant to you.

Some useful Twitter tools:

• Find People for easy connections via the Web interface.
• Search.Twitter.com for crawling profiles and Tweets.
• Tweet Later for monitoring keywords and getting automated keyword reports mailed to you on set intervals.
• Twellow for a Twitter Yellow Pages, with categorized groups of Tweeps to find and follow.
• Mr. Tweet for a personal networking assistant that works to link you up with similar Tweeps based on your Tweets.
• TweetDeck for a good desktop application that provides a better Twitter experience. You can categorize followers by lists, use multiple handles, one-click RT/@replies, smooth interface, easy URL shorteners, etc.
• Seesmic Desktop for another solid desktop application (less of a resource hog than TweetDeck).
• Twitpic for sharing photos.
• BudURL for URL shortening and collecting data on that link (some features are fee-based).

Cision also offers some Webinar downloads, available here.

– Dave

Twitter Hits 32 Million

Well wasn’t that fast? After having less than 10 million unique global visitors in February and then reaching the 19 million mark in March, comScore reported yesterday that Twitter hit 32 million in the month of April. That’s more monthly unique visitors than Digg, LinkedIn and The New York Times. Just look at that there graph. Impressive! Purty! Not to mention the data only reflects those who accessed Twitter via the Web; it doesn’t take into account things like mobile/desktop applications and plug-ins, which we know (and can attest to) are used rather feverishly.

– Dave

Poor Print

News this week that print publication circulation has dropped more 7 percent from last year and Condé Nast is shutting down Portfolio magazine after only 21 issues are more causes for concern for tangible news mediums.

All of this while, on a smaller scale, newspaper Web site audiences have increased 10.5 percent in the first quarter of 2009, and on a larger scale, Twitter saw a 95 percent increase in its number of worldwide visitors in March alone, eclipsing the 19 million mark (see graph below). Analysts estimate that if Twitter maintains its growth pattern, it will cross 50 million by summer. It’s also reported that by registering with the site, Oprah increasead Twitter traffic by 43 percent alone.

– Dave

Stop the Presses

There is one line from an ancient Chinese multi-curse that goes, “May you live in interesting times.” Well, it would appear that we are all cursed because I don’t recall things ever being so damn fascinating.

To put it simply, big things – seemingly steady, permanent things – are crumbling to the ground. Huge banks are dissolving, rich people are now penniless, the auto industry is crippled, homeowners are now homeless and the talented dude who played Johnny Cash has gone batshit crazy. But most of all, it’s the death of so many familiar daily newspapers that has me reeling.

I recall in 1997 and 1998, when the web had just exploded into reality (Craigslist was only in San Francisco) and everyone immediately called the inevitable death of newspapers and, ultimately, books. Many at the time, including myself, saw that prediction as ludicrous and impossible to imagine. Consolidation, sure, but total eradication? Never.

Now, just 570 years after Gutenberg’s press and 404 years after the world’s first newspaper (out of Strassburg, Germany), we are watching the newspaper industry fall to its knees. As a former newspaper reporter who still misses the buzz of a newsroom and the colleague camaraderie found in the inevitable bar across the street, I am deeply saddened.

I also know that no human emotion will stand in the way of whatever represents Progress in any era. At one time, that meant the steam engine and in another, it meant radio – in this one, it’s the Internet. Watching the death of the 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News here in Denver a few weeks back, brought the reality home for me. ‘Wow,’ I thought to myself, ‘All those early predictions are ultimately coming true – it’s really happening.’

Though I was not a regular reader of the RMN,  my news day does begin with a paper version of the WSJ.  It then continues with NPR, then Twitter, then Google News, then my inbox, which includes a number of RSS-feeds and alerts. By 9:30 a.m., I’ve fallen down multiple rabbit holes and have a pretty good handle on what’s going down. Note, that with the exception of the WSJ, I get all this for free. (Okay, I contribute monthly to NPR but they are on the honor system which is a friggin’ miracle.)

‘Free’ is the problem here, or the main reason why the titans of news are dying at an alarming rate. Today’s announcement that the 146-year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer will cease print publication and be online only is yet another notch in the belt of free online content; anyone following @themediaisdying on Twitter can attest to the body count.

Meanwhile, this morning I heard a (free!) report of three former Rocky Mountain News reporters who have teamed up with three Denver investors to create  indenvertimes.com, an online-only local news source. Their plea:

“You pledge to pay as little as $4.99 a month, and if we reach our goal of 50,000 pledges by April 23 we will go live with our site to revive a tradition of distinguished reporting and editing with 21st-century electronic delivery. It’s an investment, one worth $4.99 a month to encourage a bold, creative effort to continue a vision based on a 150-year Denver tradition.”

Honestly? I applaud their ‘rising from the ashes’ mission but I worry for them. The New York Times tried online subscriptions with Times Select and gave up in September 2007. Others, such as Boston Globe and LA Times, have met the same fate.  (The Wall Street Journal still pulls it off, presumably because the subscriptions are business-related and therefore, write-offs.)

Mark Potts, over at the Recovering Journalist blog recently addressed this question in his thorough post, ‘Doing the Math on Online Newspaper Subscriptions’:

“Clamoring for a few pennies from online subscriptions is not going to rescue the newspaper business, and in fact, it could strike a fatal blow if it undermines what advertising revenue is already there. There’s much, much more money to be had by maximizing online advertising revenue opportunities than there is by trying to coerce readers to pay to visit newspaper sites. What’s needed is serious effort to make newspaper Web advertising a robust form of revenue that supports quality news organizations.”

I’m not sure what the answer is but my buddies in the news biz are saying things like, “Well, I’ve always wanted to be a life coach” and “So, how much rent do you pay in Denver?”

Ultimately, humans – being needy, yappy creatures – still crave communication with one another in some form, which is why things like Twitter and Facebook happen.

I recall last month’s story by my favorite WSJ reporter, Jeffrey Zaslow, called ‘Why You Don’t Want to Die On a Sunday in Detroit.’ Now that the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press cut their home delivery to three days a week, people are kicking the bucket without as much notice to their pals – specifically, pals who still walk the earth but refuse to go buy a paper or who cannot/will not access the news online. Hence, funerals are being missed.

Some quotes from the article:

“We’ll have to go back to word of mouth. We’ll try to condition people: ‘Make sure you call all your mom’s friends to say she died.'” –David Techner, funeral director at Ira Kaufman Chapel in Southfield, Michigan

“Will I need to go out on cold, icy mornings to find a newsstand that might have your paper – or do I wait until Thursday to find out that a friend was buried two days ago?” –letter to the Detroit Free Press from reader Phyllis Look

“I recognize that this will be disruptive to older citizens, (but) I can’t drive the paper to your home every day and maintain this business model.” –David Hunke, publisher of the Free Press

“You may want to keep better track of the people you love, so you know what’s happening in their lives. Don’t wait until they die.” –Joan Borysenko, psychologist

Hence, the birth of social media.

Next up? I can’t possibly imagine but I am remembering another part of that Chinese curse, “May you find what you are looking for.”

SPIN Earth – a fresh, worldview on music

My friend Lars works for SPIN Media (owns SPIN Magazine) and since last September has been working to launch SPIN Earth, which, in his words is “a worldwide network of correspondents [that will] help deliver local music news and updates from all regions globally.”

It seems like a mix of citizen and traditional journalism, as the site will “utilize reports supplied by dozens of correspondents daily, curated by a team of editors to ensure quality and professionalism.” So maintains the user-generated feel (though it’s my understanding they’re recruiting folks to contribute) with an edited finished product. 

 My friend worked to develop the network of correspondents and contributors in Africa.

I honestly haven’t poked around the site much, but I like the idea and would be curious what others think. Since this is a beta site for now (they’ll be officially launching later this year), I can deliver any feedback you have to Lars.

Yeah!