GITweekly

Fired?

For the cherubs out there who’ve never heard of one Kyle Dalton Sandilands, he’s an Australian radio personality renowned for his outspoken and often abrasive comments about other public figures. The latest Kyle offensive was aimed at a female journalist and involved him saying that he would hunt her down. This followed comments, on air, about her weight and her cleavage. Ordinarily Kyle’s comments either boost his ratings or end with mild scoffs at his naughtiness. Not this time. This time he’s reeling after a shot to the kidneys by Twitter, the populist assassin. Read the rest of this entry →

Who owns the Wisdom of the crowd? J. Jarvis (2010)

Any business that’s keen on self improvement and providing customer service beyond what their competitor’s offer have to be using all of the major social networking tools available to them. And they are tools – all part of a “kit” that marketeers can use to promote and improve themselves. Hey, we even garnered some press coverage due to these tools being used to spot unimpressed consumers.

But today instead of rambling, as I do, about the pro’s of tools like Twitter and Facebook I’d like to pose a few questions.

While listening to a recent TWIG podcast I was intrigued by the idea that the information that you throw out into the ether no longer belongs to you. Tweets and Facebook status updates have now made it into book form as a collated mass of bizarre and funny content. As these books have been sold – who should get the denari?

Or as the quote above says – Who owns the wisdom of the crowd?

Is it the Facebooks and Twitters of the world?

Or is it the user that poured their soul into the Tweet about the size of Kim Kardashian’s derriere?

Well, according to the Twitter terms of service, “this license is you authorizing us to make your Tweets available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same. But what’s yours is yours – you own your content”.

But wait. There’s more. They go on to say that the license you sign with them, i.e. signing up for an account, gives Twitter the right to syndicate that content without further permission – essentially.

But most importantly – “Such additional uses by Twitter, or other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter, may be made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Content that you submit, post, transmit or otherwise make available through the Services”.

So in a nutshell:

• You own your content.
• Twitter can use this content without your permission.
• And if they do use the content – they don’t have to pay you.

Is this good?

Is this wrong?

Let’s get some pragmatism on peoples:

• Twitter provides a valuable service and a far reaching platform for you to use as an instant communications tool.
• You’re delusional if you don’t realise that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
• It really is a win/win for both sides.

Got a business? You have to be using these tools.

But remember – once that sent button is pressed – it’s out there. Each Tweet or update needs to be constructed with as much care as you would with a traditional media release or broadsheet advertisement.

Call me odd. Call me a lunatic. Heck, call me naive. But what I find intriguing is the fact that an audio book “company” like Audible would sponsor a podcast.

Why do you say this, I hear you spit?

Well, I can only ramble based upon my use and that of my close knit group of miscreants but here are “our” facts:

• Podcasts are generally free and provide, to their dear listeners, content suited to the person that downloaded it.
• This suitable content occupies the person for around the hour mark. Perfect for the commute.
• An hour listening to spoken content is scientifically* proven to be the maximum period a person can absorb spoken content.
• This is sounding like the same market audiobooks are targeting.

So, plug these learned factoids together and you get this:

Products like audiobooks are in direct competition with podcasts. Both are a source of enjoyable spoken content. Both are listened to during the commute, at the gym, in the garden, or on the couch. The only difference is that the audiobook will set you back over US$30 (less if you subscribe). On the other hand the podcast is free via your podcast aggregator (e.g. iTunes).

Don’t get me wrong. I love the idea of the audiobook. I have only praise for a well edited and voiced rendering of a literary favourite. But my point is that by sponsoring podcasts, and thank goodness they do, they are helping to supply the very thing that could eat into their audience. It’s a bit like a car company sponsoring a ride to work day.

Just food for thought.

*In our opinion. Um…sorry.