Over the past year, popular social networking sites Twitter and Facebook have both undergone changes. Twitter increased their security and made the site a little more user-friendly in terms of finding things, and even now they’re working on improving their search feature. Facebook is in the throes of an extremely unpopular change to users’ pages — their “what are my friends doing” pages, not their profile pages — after taking a major hit a few months back when they simply shifted stuff around without really changing the functionality.
The point of a website, when you get right down to it, is to provide compelling content so advertisers’ ads show up on the page and people (maybe) click on them*. Facebook has very non-intrusive ads on their site, and Twitter doesn’t have any (at the moment).
Now, I’m a power internet user — as most of my colleagues at 11Alive will attest. Instead of going to Facebook.com and Twitter.com whenever I want to know what’s going on with my friends, I go instead to my RSS application, Google Reader, and open a folder that has all of my friends’ status updates in both Twitter and Facebook.
At least, it used to. But in a single day, both Twitter and Facebook have made changes to their sites that prevent me from doing it this way. From a business standpoint, this makes perfect sense — now I actually have to go to Facebook’s site or Twitter’s site to see what’s going on.
Or do I?
Facebook and Twitter both make a big deal out of the fact that they’re great for people on the go — you can update your status and upload your pictures from your mobile phone with relative ease. I do it all the time. And, unlike their on-the-internet counterparts, the Facebook Mobile App and the TwitterFon app for iPhone have not changed their interfaces at all since I downloaded them.
So instead of going to Facebook.com, I’ll hit the little blue-and-white “F” on my phone to see what’s going on on Facebook. Instead of going to Twitter.com, I’ll hit the little blue-and-white “t” on my phone to read and reply to my friends’ tweets**. I won’t see any Facebook ads, and as for TwitterFon… well, that’s free to begin with, but it’s such a useful app to me that I’d probably pay the programmer 99 cents if he started charging.
There are a lot of ways to consume web content — going to sites, reading or watching video on your phone, aggregating everything into an RSS reader (my preferred method). But no matter what, companies should never do anything that makes their web-based consumers go somewhere where ads can’t be seen. Facebook? Twitter? You just pulled that off marvelously.
* Don’t lie. You know you’ve clicked on a few ads this month. We all do it.
** A “tweet” is a status message on Twitter, like “Josh is posting a blog on 11AliveBlogs.com”.
Here’s the challenge: Find a place to live in a city you’ve never been to before. You have two days.
I’ve been in that place, and made a few mistakes along the way. In my 28 years, I’ve moved 13 times. Sometimes across the country, but often across town. I may not be the Obi Wan of moving, but I’m pretty close. Now, I’m using all those miles to help a former co-worker.
He’s headed to Atlanta next month under the 2-day scenario. I tried to steer him in the right direction, to save him a few mistakes. I forgot one big thing: bring your own water.
The day after our detailed discussion of Atlanta’s layout, I woke up and went to take a shower. No water. It wasn’t the first time. Almost any given day in Atlanta, there is a water main break somewhere. Sometimes it’s just a trickle . Sometimes, it’s a gushing river. Three times in the last year, it means no water for me.
It means running around frantically, dumping every source of water into a big pot (tea kettle from last night, Britta pitcher from the fridge, ice cubes from the freezer, half empty water glass on the nightstand), heating it up a little (to melt the ice), and shampooing my hair in said pot.
Now, I keep a big jug of emergency water in the fridge.
There are many reasons for the water issue: old pipes, fast growth, constant construction. But trust me, when you’re washing your hair in a pot of water, you’re less concerned about the why and more concerned with where you put that jug of emergency water.
Maybe my welcome to Atlanta gift should be a plastic jug. At least I know he’ll use it.
I’ve been reading a lot of graphic novels lately (“graphic novels” sound more grown up than “comics”). As a photographer, I love the framing, shading, and colors. As an avid reader, I like the complicated plot lines. Even if you’re not a comic reader, you’ve probably heard the line “With great power comes great responsibility.”
I think it should read “With great trust comes great responsibility.” I believe media plays an important role in our democracy, and we take that power seriously. But as an individual journalist, I’ve never felt “powerful”. Instead, I feel the weight of responsibility because of your trust.
Our viewers trust us to tell the truth, to remain objective, to hold our politicians accountable.
Sometimes, our viewers grant us a much deeper level of trust.
I first met the LaSalle family in November. Margie was fighting breast cancer and had a poor prognosis. A family friend wrote and illustrated a children’s book based on their story to help kids deal with terminally ill parents. It’s called “Always and Everywhere”. Proceeds from the book would help the LaSalle family buy a one-story house since Margie was having difficulty managing the stairs in their small Cobb County home.
The story set off a flood of viewer e-mails; people were touched by the story and wanted to do something to help. I e-mailed back and forth with some of Margie’s friends and family to make sure they received those offers of help. That was in November.
Since then, I’ve often thought of Margie and her family. She mostly popped into my head when I was having a bad day. Through furloughs and car troubles, when I was wearing a frown, I’d remember her family and chastise myself for wasting even one day sweating all that small stuff.
Two weeks ago, I got an e-mail from one of Margie’s friends. I have to be honest. When I read the subject line “A follow up on Margie LaSalle”, I braced for some bad news. Instead, I found a simple request. Margie was in hospice; her daughter was having a birthday party. Could I do tape the party since Margie couldn’t go?
Originally, we thought about trying to set up a live web camera so Margie could see the party as it was happening. After consulting her family and friends, we decided watching 3 hours of a blurry video wouldn’t work for Margie or 8-year-old kids.
I talked to my news director and we agreed: I would go to the party because it was something we wanted to do for this family. I wasn’t sure if I would even do a story on it. That’s not why I was there.
About half-way through the night, Chris LaSalle said he wanted to do an interview. So we sat down (in an only slightly quiet corner) and talked about Claire and Margie. He was open and candid… and heartbreaking. Soon, I was interviewing Margie’s mom and other friends.
I asked Chris where I could drop off the DVD, and he asked if I wanted to watch it with Margie. Every step of the way, still unsure if I would turn this into a story, I kept asking “Is this OK?”
The LaSalle family said yes, because they trusted me. And that was a great responsibility. I feel so lucky that I’ve been able to spend some time with Margie. She is an amazing woman. I hope the weight of responsibility I felt came across in the story I told about her and her family.
I was all set to come to the station tonight to see everyone, but Mom’s not feeling too good, so I’m going to stay home and take care of her. See you next time!
