In part 2 of my discussion with Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback, we review the importance of community in the very fabric of the programming and overall production. As Jim explains, Revision3 got its name from the idea that television is undergoing its third revision. Revision 1 was the three broadcast networks. Revision 2 was cable television, which as Jim highlights, helped bring television closer to the audience. Revision 3 is rooted in “breaking the fourth wall,” a popular expression in theater for connecting the seated audience with the performance on stage. Internet television opens up a new paradigm for connecting through the camera to PCs and mobile devices.  The new era of content producers must create content that’s not only engaging but participatory. Content merely becomes one pillar of community.

We’re now connecting with an audience with an audience of audiences.  And, this audience is no longer passive, they’re now in the director’s chair and ready to be part of the experience.

Please watch Part 2. For part 1 of the discussion, please click here.

Season 2 – Episode 6

Season Two:
S2E1: How Mercedes Benz Successfully Uses Social Media to Engage
S2E2: Technorati’s Richard Jalichandra on the State and Future of Social Media
S2E3: Guy Kawasaki on the Art of Enchantment
S2E4: Adly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh on the Social Era of Celebrity Endorsements
S2E5: Filmmaker and Webby Awards Founder Tiffany Shlain
S2E6: Jim Louderback, Revision3 CEO on the Future of Broadcast and Web Television – Part 1 of 2

Watch Season One on YouTube

Now on iTunes!

Filmed at Revision3 studios in San Francisco

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In recent weeks journalism and the future of all media have once again gone under the knife. Experts on either side of new media debated whether or not Twitter’s CNN moment truly was indicative of the future of journalism. Twitter’s role in the spread of online dialogue speculating the death of Osama Bin Laden was studied at great depths to better understand when and where news actually surfaces, how it’s validated, and how news travels across the Web and in real life.  Perhaps nothing visualized the power of a single Tweet with such dramatic effect as the network graph developed by SocialFlow.

Twitter is becoming a veritable human seismograph as it measures and records events as they unfold. But for this discussion, I’d like to focus not on the future of journalism, but instead on human behavior and the reality of the social effect. In doing so, we will identify the click paths and the sharing patterns of the informed and connected to learn how to design vibrant information exchanges on the traditional Web as well as in social networks.

The End of the Destination Web and the Revival of the Information Economy

In hindsight, the days of Web 1.0 seem like an era long gone. I think back to the early days of the Web and I struggle to think about what fashion, cars and popular music thrived as the Web radically transformed the then information economy. It’s as distant as the behavior that embraced it. For many, Web 1.0 was empowering. But to access information, we were reliant on our willingness to visit desirable websites for insight, entertainment, and news. Home pages, bookmarks and email subscriptions helped people manage the information overload that overwhelmed consumers with so much great content. Over the years, portals helped us manage the content by aggregating content from the sites and topics we preferred. We were then gifted with RSS feeds and readers to enhance the way relevant information found us.

The bridge between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 was forged through a series of connections between a Web of Data, a Web of Content, and a Web of People. Although abbreviated, this evolution is important as it sets the stage for where we are today. Web 2.0 is the great democratization of the internet. Everyday people were empowered to create as much or more than they consumed.  Among the greatest transformations in the history of media, traditional sources of information were now rivaled by new voices. These rising pundits, experts and authorities  seized the opportunity to create content that satisfied the needs of an audience who were hungry for vertical and dedicated content. As a result, the construction of new information networks strained the long-established relationships between push or broadcast content and market demand. The tipping point for this orthodox practice was reached long ago yet media is now just realizing its effect, potential, and also consequences. It was the beginning of the end of business as usual for the conventional media empire.

The transformation of media was only hastened as the Social Web fused the principles of Web 2.0 fostering social networks where people connected with one another to communicate, discover, share, and learn. Social networks carried a profound challenge and opportunity for media and information commerce. Leading networks essentially cannibalized attention as they rapidly evolved into a universal portal and information exchange. People now received news and important information based on who they connected to, what captivated their attention, and in turn what they invested back into the community. This important shift signaled the end of the destination web as the primary source for information and the revival of the information economy.

Individuals connecting in social networks exchanged information as a form of currency. When news broke or events transpired, it became commonplace for a traditional news outlet to dramatically amplify reach as the story reverberated from person to person and network to network at the speed of clicks. And those clicks carried a power that we’re still trying to grasp, the ability to, with just one click, imply endorsement, evoke trust, interrupt attention spans, and alter courses of action through a one-to-one-to-many network effect. CNN greatly benefited from this new distribution model when its Balloon Boy story hit Twitter, soared to the top of the Trending Topics list, and continued to permeate the social web for days to come.

While content long celebrated its reign at the top, context was now king and connections that formed the interest graph would now dictate the content introduced within it. As the social web matured, it would introduce a new form of information brokers who would further propel the information economy and its role in culture and society. The role of curator would emerge between creator and consumer to facilitate the exchange of relevant information within their networks of relevance and among their interest graphs. I refer to this phenomenon as The 3C’s of Information Commerce and it is triggering the development of new technology, networks, and platforms to empower curators to bridge material content to those seeking it.

Retweets, Likes, connected commenting systems such as Disqus, Facebook, and Echo, URL shorteners, curation networks such as Paper.li, Pearltrees, Scoop.it and Flipboard, along with any other social sharing button you can imagine now served as the tools for curators to curate the experience they envision. Additionally, curation expedited the migration away from static web sites as a destination, as a well from which to bring water back to their village. Wells were now in greater abundance than their demand.

Information is now portable and people expect it to find them.

This.Just.In

Here we are, learning to adapt in a market in transition. Online experiences continue evolve, but what’s clear is that there are three specific consumer segments that require unique support systems. This is where the future of media begins. By understanding that different people find, share, and interact with content differently, experiences can then be architected and information channels activated in ways that consumers expect.

1. Social Consumer: Represents the emergent segment where consumers rely on social networks to discover, share, and learn. Doing so changes the click and clique behavior and how they in turn make decisions.

2. Online: The category that visits destinations of presence for continued information. This category also relies on Google as a point of entry for discovery.

3. Traditional: Consumes content in print, broadcast and remains loyal to their trusted and proven information sources, including word of mouth. They too will visit online destinations, usually those that provide tangible (and tactile) experiences and value in the real world.

In a world where social, online, and traditional consumers live independent of one another, this market in transition is teaching us that the lines between each category are certainly eroding.

The state and outlook for new media, in the very least, represents the equivalent of a near death experience for organizations. These encounters are nothing short of life-changing. They add a critical element of survival into the next steps of anyone who now realizes that things can and must be different. As such, destination sites are embracing new media as necessary steps to persevere. Many of these steps seem prescriptive as if following an instruction manual to relevance.

Step 1: Integrate social functionality into the dotcom, remove proprietary functionality

Step 2: Create a Twitter and Facebook presence

Step 3: Launch blogs

Step 4: Instruct reporters to promote their work within their social networks

Step 5: Develop a layer for citizen participation and journalism

Step 6: Create a mobile app

Step 7: Create an iPad subscription service

Step 8: Install a paywall

Step 9: Gamify the dotcom to enliven the experience

Step 10: Pray

Brand Journalism

The future of media is not limited to everyday consumers. Brands too are becoming media. Tom Foremski refers to this branded media movement as “Every Company is a Media Company” and EC=MC is the transformative equation for business.

Once supported by brand advertising, media is now witnessing a new era of brand journalism that seeks to outperform and outreach the audiences that are for lease by today’s traditional networks. The market for information is now becoming rich with social objects that are designed not only for consumption but also for sharing. With the democratization of the web comes the democratization of influence. It’s now anyone’s game to become the resource and source for information related to a segment. Brands realize this and are experimenting with the establishment of nicheworks dedicated to their industry. Indeed the future of marketing starts with publishing.

Companies are seeking new CEO’s (Chief Editorial Officers) and are hiring journalists, editors, and freelancers to transform mediarooms and blogs into veritable newsrooms.

This move is as paramount as it is transformative. There are several reasons why the stars are in alignment for brand journalism.

1. Social consumers are no longer captivated or enticed by traditional advertising.

2. According  to a recent Edelman survey, trust in peers is falling while trust in experts is soaring.  It is the latter that holds the greatest promise for brands and any media network.

As social networking evolves from social graphs to interest graphs, connections also evolve from relationships to relations weighted on the value of the currency exchanged between them. In this case, currency is information and value is measured by insight, education, entertainment, further personalized at the individual level. While the market for content is commoditized, the market for insight is limitless and priced accordingly.

The Attention Rubicon

In Engage, I introduce the concept of an Attention Rubicon, the line where attention is in short supply and whether people realize it or not, its state is measured by what reaches them, what doesn’t and also what they deem worthy of sharing. The Attention Rubicon has long since been passed by the social consumer and is on the horizon of many online and traditional consumers. It will be crossed and as a result, the information economy will adapt.

Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism published a study that further details the shift away from the destination web and the rising tide of social streams as the attention dashboards of an important class of consumers.

As Pew’s Kenny Olmstead, Amy Mitchell and Tom Rosenstiel observe, “Whatever the future of journalism, much of it depends on understanding the ways that people navigate the digital news environment—the behavior of what might be called the new news consumer.”

This is why social media has never been about the technology as much as it has been governed by social science (2007) to better understand its state and its direction.

In partnership with Nielsen, Pew examined the top 25 news web sites in the U.S. and studied the four main areas of audience behavior:

1. How users get to the top news sites
2. How long they stay during each visit
3. How deep they go into a site
4. Where they go when they leave

As discussed earlier by the 3 Segments of consumerism, Pew found that there is not one group of news consumers, but in fact several. And as a result, news organizations or any organization for that matter, require unique strategies for addressing each audience.

Among the revealing insights…

It’s clear that social networks aren’t a fad, they’re not going away, they’re in fact rivaling the top referrers for site traffic.

The top brand news sites depend greatly on “casual users,” people who visit just a few times per month and spend only a few minutes at a site.

USAToday.com was typical of most of these popular news sites according to Pew. 85% of its users visited USAToday.com between one and three times per month. Three quarters came only once or twice. Time spent was even more daunting…when all the visits were added together, 34%, spent between one and five minutes on the site each month (footnote)

As Pew notes, online data tend to count some users multiple times, inflating the number of casual users and undercounting repeat visits. Nonetheless, casual users still would be the largest single group.

A smaller core of loyal and frequent visitors to news sites, called “power users.” These individuals return more than 10x per month to a given site and spend more than an hour there over that time. Among the top 25 sites, power users visiting at least 10 times make up an average of just 7% of total users. That number ranged markedly from as high as 18% (at CNN.com) to as low as 1% (at BingNews.com).

Google remains the primary entry point. The search engine accounts on average for 30% of the traffic to these sites.

Of all social networks, Facebook in particular, is a powerful, and growing, news referring source. At five of the top sites, Facebook is the second or third most important driver of traffic. Surprisingly, Twitter barely registers as a referring source. In the same vein, when users leave a site, “share” tools that appear alongside most news stories rank among the most clicked-on links.

News consumers to the top news websites are on par with Internet users overall. This stands apart from news consumption on traditional platforms, which tends to skew older, and may bode well for the industry.

The future of media is evolving and its direction is far from certain. What’s clear however, is that any media organization or business will have to compete for attention in this information economy in real time and over time. This is about competing for the future by competing for the moment. The consumer of the future is visible today as they’re always on. The interest graphs they weave within social networks serve as qualified information networks that can amplify information with unprecedented speed, efficiency and personalization. It creates a  human algorithm that brings to life an awakening and revolutionary reality; we are now reaching an audience with an audience of audiences. They’re no longer consumers, but stakeholders in the information economy.

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I was asked to enter the Bloomberg BusinessWeek Debate Room to make the case “for” Twitter as a platform for journalism – at least that’s how I interpreted it. On the other side, ScribbleLive CEO Michael De Monte debates why it is “for the birds.”

But before we get too far down the path, let’s frame the discussion. The original debate topic posed by BusinessWeek, “Twitter Isn’t Journalism, Or Is It?” is a bit misleading  and honestly, I think it’s the wrong question to ask.

In his reaction to the question as posed, Jeff Jarvis shed light on its fallibility through a literal interpretation, “More like an undebate. Typing: journalism or not?”

Dan Patterson of ABC News Radio introduced helpful frames of reference in his Tweet, “It’s the wrong question. Twitter is a tool, the web is a medium, and journalism is an action.”

Perhaps Jarvis’s response is an example of what’s really at the heart of the debate, context. BusinessWeek’s headline as proposed is constraining. It implies Twitter as a platform is or isn’t journalism, which isn’t the intention, at least not in how it was presented to me. The bigger discussion is rooted in the action of Tweeting and whether or not for example, protected by the same rights as other media.

As Alex Howard signals, “There is a debate, whether you acknowledge it or not: shield laws now protect journalists, not acts of journalism.”

Perhaps, for the sake of this discussion, the question would be better asked this way, “Can Tweets represent acts of journalism?”

When we look at the question in this light, the original intention for the course of conversation is righted.

In addressing the spirit of the debate, GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram steers the discussion back on course with his response, “the answer is being provided by @acarvin and @NickKristof.”

Seeing the question in a new light, we need not look any further than NPR’s Andy Carvin for an answer. From the front lines in Bahrain, Carvin  Tweeted, “Later; too busy tweeting reports from Bahrain now.”

Twitter is a platform. And if journalism is an action, can Tweets represent acts of journalism?”

There are valid points on both sides of the discussion, but we learn a great deal more when we open it up to more voices. Please join us…share your thoughts.

Debate Topic: Tweets can recite facts, but Twitter doesn’t qualify as a journalistic vehicle. Pro or con?

To comply with BusinessWeek’s request, please click through to read the post in its entirety…

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Recently, Facebook announced that it had surpassed the 300 million user mark. According to Experian HitWise, Facebook accounted for 58.59 percent of all U.S. visits among a custom category of 155 social networking Web sites in September 2009. This is an interesting stat and I would love for Experian HitWise to send the full list over, so that I can also analyze the playing field for new, emerging, and declining players across the board.

The report noted that Facebook’s growth was the highest among all social networks, with U.S. visits increasing 194 percent between September 2008 and September 2009.

Market Share of U.S. Internet Visits to Top Five Social Networking Web Sites

But then, there’s our “social” darling…Twitter. Twitter had the largest percentage gain in market share of visits among the top five visited Web sites, increasing 1,170 percent compared to the previous year. In fact, 2009 is “The Year of Twitter” as documented by the traffic and reach of Twitter.com at Alexa and Compete.

According to the report, U.S. visits to all social networks was up by 62 percent from September 2008 to 2009. Except of course, at Myspace and myYearbook. From 2008 to 2009 each experienced a significant erosion in visits by -55 percent and -40 percent respectively. The good news for MySpace however, is that the network topped the charts for average time spent in the network. And, as engagement is a key metric for social media, this data is critical to the future of MySpace engineering, innovation, and the ecosystem it creates moving forward.  But, that engagement level is slipping, as it reflects a 12 percent loss of attention year-over-year.

As you’ll see in a report I will soon publish, Twitter is starting to appeal to the youth who have powered MySpace in the past and still do today. Fusion and integration are key at the once dominant social network.

Average U.S. Time Spent Among Top Five Social Networking Web Sites (in minutes and seconds)

Looking at the data, you’ll notice that Twitter also experienced a loss in engagement time among visitors. From September 2008 – 2009, Twitter actually lost a whopping 31 percent of visitor attention span. I believe that many will say that the shift in numbers stems from the migration of those who previously interacted on Twitter.com and now engage via third-party clients such as TweetDeck, Seesmic, CoTweet, HootSuite, et al. I will have these numbers available for you shortly…

Nielsen also released interesting numbers that corroborated with my recent findings that emanated from my research into the demographics behind the most popular social networks. As a result, CNN postulated as to whether or not your social class determined your online social network.

Breeanna Hare of CNN asked if a class divide exists online.

Research suggests yes.

Nielsen Claritas conducted an online panel of more than 200,000 social media users in the United States in August. The study found that people in more affluent demographics are 25 percent more likely use Facebook, while the less affluent, 37 percent, are more likely to connect on MySpace.

Users with household income above $75,000
Facebook — 41.74 percent
MySpace — 32.38 percent
LinkedIn — 58.35 percent
Twitter — 43.34 percent

Users with household income under $50,000
Facebook — 28.42 percent
MySpace — 37.13 percent
LinkedIn — 17.34 percent
Twitter — 28.36 percent

Female users
Facebook — 56.33 percent
MySpace — 56.69 percent
LinkedIn — 48.11percent
Twitter — 53.59 percent

Users aged 18 to 24
Facebook — 10.27 percent
MySpace — 15.46 percent
LinkedIn — 3.99 percent
Twitter — 9.51percent

Users aged 35 to 49
Facebook — 31.54 percent
MySpace — 29.09 percent
LinkedIn — 43.64 percent
Twitter — 34.02 percent

According to Mike Mancini, vice president of data product management for Nielsen, “MySpace, users tend to be in middle-class, blue-collar neighborhoods. They’re on their way up, or perhaps not college educated. Facebook goes off the charts in the upscale suburbs.”

Nielsen also found a strong overlap between those who use Facebook and those who use LinkedIn.

Honestly, categorizing human behavior and activities in social networks by financial status appears incomplete and almost insular. If we are learning anything in the study of and participation in social networks, it’s that individuals are forming networks that traverse across multiple social networks – and, they will continue to do so, forming one larger, expansive human network in the process. We’re bound by context and interests and it’s why psychographic data overcomes demographics when assessing how to best reach, engage, and galvanize the people who define our communities online.

This is why, in social media, digital anthropology, sociology, ethnography, and psychology prevail…

Please also read the psychology of Twitter with Dr. Drew and in Social Media, Women Rule

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For those veterans who continue to define Twitter’s role in how we communicate, share and learn, those who have recently made its acquaintance, and those just finding their stride, we all linked through common threads and context that pique our curiosity, stimulate our quest for adventure,  expand our networks beyond our real world network, and feed our desire for attention.

We contribute to the expansion of the Twitterverse.

MG Siegler over at TechCrunch shared two images created by Manolith that richly visualize the three-year old, albeit brief, history of Twitter and its rapid rise to pop culture and its remarkable ability to detour its direction.

Had Manolith waited just one more week to create these images, we would have perhaps the most significant stage of Twitter’s maturation to date; its ability to break news, influence global perception, establish new channels for diplomacy, and galvanize world support.

The Twitter News Network

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This past weekend the Twitterverse spoke-out in exasperation and opposition against traditional media networks (CNN specifically) and the absence of instantaneous coverage of the Iranian election and the resulting fallout. “We the people” wanted real-time information regarding the violent protests that erupted on the streets of Iran and the stories probing potential foul play in the results. We took to Twitter to express discontent and to also uncover the real story as it was unfolding live through citizen journalism.

The world was watching…and it did so on Twitter and not CNN or any other news network.

At the 140 Characters Conference (#140conf) in New York, Robert Scoble hosted a fervent discussion with social media-savvy traditional news personalities to explore how Twitter was transforming the process of news gathering and lead sourcing. Joining Scoble was Ann Curry (@AnnCurry) – News Anchor on NBC’s Today Show and host of Dateline NBC, Rick Sanchez (@ricksanchezcnn) – host of the 3PM weekday edition of CNN Newsroom, Ryan Osborn (@todayshow) – producer, NBC Today Show, and Clayton Morris (@claytonmorris) – anchor, Fox News.

In the case of Iran’s election, Twitter once again served as the lifeline to news and information related to a monumental and historical event.

Conference organizer Jeff Pulver calls this the era of “now” media fueled by new and social media and the people who power Twitter and other popular networks. The pursuit of “now” is conditioning us to expect information as it happens, whether it’s accurate or developing.

The question is, how will this latest example of community-powered news consumption and distribution effect how traditional news organizations gather and report on news.

Robert Scoble said of his inspiration for the session, “I wanted to learn more about the election in Iran and the crisis and the violence that was spilling onto the streets. I couldn’t find anything on CNN. In fact, all I could find was Larry King talking to motorcycle mechanics.”

His frustration was also shared by many, which served as the groundswell for the powerful Twitter storm that ensued.

If we reflect upon the words shared by Twitter creator and co-founder Jack Dorsey in his morning keynote, “Twitter is about approach, transparency, and immediacy.”

If media is fragmented and distributed, perhaps what we’re now witnessing is that the framework for publishing and monetizing news is physically and financially constraining and choking its ability to evolve and adapt in “Twitter time.”

Dorsey’s words will continue to ricochet in the conference rooms of newsrooms and offices unable to find resonance with executives and producers who are responsible for leading change in this dire economic climate.

Rick Sanchez passionately expressed his frustration associated with his fixed time schedule for reporting news. As an avid user of Twitter, he also acknowledged that things have to adapt, “Is news judgment changing? Yes!”

“This is the first time where we can connect directly with citizens who could be a reliable source aside from the talking heads and pretty faces that serve as news anchors,” he continued.

Even though he caught himself from elaborating on that controversial portion of an otherwise interesting comment, the crowd still rightly booed and hissed in response.

While he’s partially correct about Twitter serving as the catalyst for the evolution of news judgment and connecting directly with citizens, the methodology associated with embracing Twitter or Social Media in general is actually in direct response to its insurgence and the competitive threat it represents. Media is reacting simply because of the authority associated with Twitter and other emerging social networks.

Ann Curry cleverly countered, “While I may not be another ‘a pretty face,’ we have to look at whether or not mainstream media is covering the world fast enough and the answer is no.” She then concluded, “Should we be? Yes. But, right now, we can’t keep pace.”

She’s right.

News media can’t keep pace with the new world of media consumption and the insatiable appetite for information – especially when it has yet to understand the true promise and opportunity that Social Media represents. This isn’t about adapting an existing model to new, popular broadcast channels. It’s about expanding and forcing a fundamental renaissance within the news machine itself—transforming and creating how these media giants can monetize new streams and platforms.

Ann also echoed Dorsey’s tenant of approach, “With social media, we can empathize with our subjects in order to see and report on a story truthfully.”

Her next statement made us stop and reflect, to which she earned enthusiastic applause, “My mandate for news teams is that I want them to shoot every story like it’s about their mother, brother, sister, father, and cousin. Tell it that way. That’s the road to clarity, truth, understanding and fully becoming global.”

It celebrates not only the foundation for exceptional journalism, but also the spirit of social media.

It’s about real people.

It’s about emotion.

It’s about empathy.

News is global and Twitter is one of the leading social networks that connects us to other human beings through the stories that affect them, us.

Clayton Morris of Fox News injected reality into the discussion and emphasized a point that underpinned Andrew Keen’s highly debated book, “The Cult of the Amateur.” “There’s a tipping point right now with new, traditional, and social media. It’s conversation versus fact checking. No one has answers to where this convergence is leading,” he exclaimed.

Fact checking is a vital part of the news business and is ultimately what separates amateurs from experts. But researching fact from hearsay or even opinion is almost impossible on Twitter for most users.

Keen believed that citizen media is corrupting the very institution of news media because most of the individuals publishing information using social tools, according to the book, are “grossly misinformed,” he argues. While Morris didn’t make the sweeping assertion that Keen expressed, his point is noteworthy and deserves further examination.

But, we have the power as consumers to also become informed fact checkers to intelligently sort fact from fiction.

Perhaps however, what Twitter represents has less to do with the integrity of information and more to do with the culture it’s defining. As I wrote in a previous post, Can the Statusphere Save Journalism, “What eludes publishers is the very thing that can save them: the new model for not only surviving the evolution, but also thriving in the future ecosystem of publishing and connecting content with audiences—where they congregate online. The new media economy will embrace a shift in content creation and revenue generation from a top-down model to a bottom-up groundswell.”

This is particularly significant as it starts to redefine the parameters and platforms for creating and distributing information and in turn, monetizing that content.

Scoble again asked, “Where was CNN on that day, at that time?”

Rick Sanchez, responded, “We had people in Iran watching the events unfold, live. Our people were tear-gased. We were there.”

And here’s my point as stated by Scoble in response to Sanchez, “How would we know that? Why didn’t you share that side of the story with us as it was happening? You couldn’t because your show wasn’t on!”

Curry agreed, “There are other stories that are important for people to hear, but don’t make broadcast.”

This is true. We are seeking more human stories and aspects of news that connect with us as individuals. However, these other stories don’t necessarily fall within formulas and packages that represent sellable or subsidized media products.

Curry demonstrated the opportunity for media to create entirely new channels that augment traditional news reporting, “I learned about the last missile test in North Korea on Twitter. I turned on the TV and no one was reporting the story. I thought to myself, ‘this sucks.’ So, I jumped on Twitter and reported the facts as I found them in real time.”

As her story continued, she also unearthed one of the factors in why traditional media is hesitant to expand participation and engagement through social channels, “I had to be careful however. I was receiving reactions and questions. The trick is communicating solid information without misleading anyone. One word can change how people interpret anything. I feel a great obligation to never twitter something that is wrong.”

Credibility counts for everything and as Curry noted, “once you lose that, you’ve lost.”

Fear is an obstruction. Guidance and experience is the only way to establish the rules of engagement in order to cultivate a vibrant, monetizable community associated with these promising new channels for mainstream and unpublished content.

The panel then traversed into a tense, but necessary discussion of traditional journalism versus citizen media. Now the audience was involved and outbursts and comments were escalating.

Curry captured the essence of the debate by shedding light on the middle ground that exists between traditional and new media producers, “Judgment is not taught in ‘j’ school. Judgment is learned. Judgment has to change with the times.”

As she observed, reporting news is a service job and also a business. But ultimately, reporters and bloggers serve the people.

The session went into overtime and continued to explore this new ecosystem where traditional media, new media, and citizens could create a valuable and collaborative ecosystem.

In the end, conviction, passion, investigation, accuracy, diligence, and striving for truth are the attributes of any good journalist or blogger. Crusading for higher standards in reporting and championing them into creating and growing new channels represents our collective crusade.

In revisiting Dorey’s keynote, he also spotlighted “transparency.”

Understanding who we’re trying to reach and how they discover and share information not only makes us as content creators and story tellers and participants more empathetic, but it also inspires sincerity and a genuine approach to what we say and how we say it.

As each panelist professed, it is this transparency that is missing from so many media organizations as it’s deeply misunderstood and underestimated.

Sanchez observed the lack of transparency across Twitter and media in general, “I’m bothered by people who use Twitter as shtick and people who think they’re going to change the world just because they’re using it. The race with Ashton, news teams that ‘go to the twitter boards’ while on TV to see what’s happening, it all seems contrived, like they’re trying to be part of the community, but instead they’re cheapening it.”

Curry jumped in and held nothing back, “Here’s what’s pissing me off. The reason I fight to go to places that are struggling and in need of help is to tell these stories, to get to the truth and to get people to care!”

Clayton added, “There are old parts of new media that they [publishers and broadcasters] are comfortable with and aspects of new media that represent new ways to seem like they ‘get it.” It all feels disingenuous though. Somewhere in the middle is the future. There was a point where fax bulletins were part of the breaking story.”

Sanchez quipped, “Companies that don’t assign managers for social media will fail!”

Ultimately the panel and audience agreed that strong passionate journalism was needed now and that Twitter and social media represent a new, powerful platform to broadcast news, crowdsource leads and stories, and expand the media’s role and earned relevance in the new age of media.

If you can’t get it on the air or in print, use Twitter, blogs, and social networks to get information out there.

Curry declared, “My [Twitter] followers give me a newspaper to publish stories I care about. We have a responsibility to not only tell stories for financial gain, but we need to publish information that people need to know.”

What people want to know versus what they need to know however is at the heart of why this panel was organized in the first place and why there will be many other discussions just like it.

Who’s to say what “we” want or need to know?

The answer is all of us.

As a community, we wield power that the media has yet to fully grasp and holistically embraced. Traditional media as an industry, one that is represented by individuals for individuals, is not largely part of the community it wishes to serve. Instead it uses these tools mostly as extensions of their broadcast network.

For some, on the other hand, Twitter and social media helps create a more “media-literate” society, including those classically trained journalists diligently seeking to understand the new media landscape.

Sanchez expressed his gratitude for what the community has taught him, “Twitter has made me a better journalist.”

The Twitter News Network (TNN)

While the panel explored the disruptive nature of Twitter, it also exposed its weaknesses and opportunities. Scoble compared this disruption to that of CNN’s impact on the news industry when it first debuted. All concurred that citizen media was going to push journalism to transform and adapt.

Just now as I write this, CNN Live is reporting that people in the U.S. are increasingly getting their news and information from Twitter, Facebook and other social networks and are crediting the escalating and influential online conversation with forcing a deeper examination of the results in the Iran election.

As “now” media continues to mature, its impact is clear and incontestable. The takeaway for traditional and new media producers alike is whether or not we can listen, follow, and communicate with people where they are already communicating. The opportunity for social media and its inherent benefits lies in our ability to build a two-way information bridge between the point of our content introduction, alternative sources for information, and the people looking for insight and direction. To build a community, we have to be an active participate in it.

As Paul Saffo recently said, “News doesn’t break, it tweets.”

Rick Sanchez, Jeff Pulver, Robert Scoble, Clayton Morris, Ann Curry, Ryan Osborn, Brian Solis

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