Note: Like my last post regarding the Newtown shooting, I am not intending to make light of the tragedy that occurred or the 26 lives lost. This post is written strictly from the perspective of a mass communications scholar.

1) United States vs. China

On literally the same calendar date as the Newtown shooting, a man in China attacked and slashed 22 schoolchildren with a knife. The similarities between this and the Newtown tragedy are jarring. In addition to the choice of weapon, the most noteworthy difference was that not a single child died in China from that incident. It’s also well known that China has very strict gun control laws.

I won’t make the leap to causation, but it’s very hard to divorce the two ideas. The fact that two attacks on different sides of the world took place on the same day, and the one that occurred in a country with strong gun laws meant all of those schoolchildren are still alive today.

This story has the potential to be a very important talking point in the impending gun control debate in the States. But what I find most interesting is that this anecdotal evidence can be reasonably used by both sides of the debate. The pro gun control group can say that if guns were not as easily available, then Newtown may have ended the same way as the incident in China. The anti gun control group can say that violence is going to occur anyway and that it’s in our human nature, and that we need to be able to protect ourselves from those who are unbalanced. Also worth noting is that schoolchildren attacks in China are surprisingly and disturbingly not uncommon.

credit: HD-Photography2000

2) Social Media as News Sources

In my previous blog post, I touched upon how I think CNN’s over-reliance on social media and crowdsourcing for their reporting is lazy and bad for the news industry.

But that’s not the whole story. Consider the fact that if Facebook didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have firsthand accounts of Ryan Lanza declaring his innocence (and the fact that he was alive).

Consider this Reddit thread in /r/Connecticut, where a user made up-to-the-minute updates regarding the latest breaking news. In a world where it’s hard to recant statements or reports, the ability to edit or update content on the web makes so much sense.

3) News vs. Pseudo-News

Regarding that last point, I would not consider Slate a source for breaking news. I have long viewed it as an editorial and blog-like news magazine. But when CNN misreported the identity of the Newtown shooter, it was organizations like Slate that responded with the truth.

With the Internet becoming the preferred choice for receiving news from a larger percentage of people, the line between strict news organizations and “pseudo-news” sites is further blurred. Consider a site like Buzzfeed, that largely started out as a gossip and funny image-sharing site. During the last election, they had a Mormon writer on Mitt Romney’s bus reporting from his perspective how religion was involved in the campaign.

With the reliability of the big name news organizations increasingly being called into question, it’s getting hard to know who to go to for the hard facts.

Just ask NPR. They took a big shot in credibility back in 2011 when it misreported that Representative Gabby Giffords had died.

4) Racial Issues

It’s no secret that ever since 9/11, the race of violent perpetrators is always brought to the forefront. For instance, when someone of foreign descent commits an atrocity, it’s usually quickly chalked up to terrorism by select members of the media (e.g. the Fort Hood shooting from 2009). But how many times have you heard Timothy McVeigh called a domestic terrorist? What about extreme zealots who commit crimes against abortion clinics? These are clearly acts of domestic terrorism, but they’re very rarely addressed as such by the mainstream media. Which is what led to Bob Schieffer making a very poignant hypothetical on Face the Nation. Schieffer said, “If this person had… an Arab name, people would be going nuts.” See the abbreviated video clip below:

There’s no doubt in my mind that that would’ve been the case. In fact, I know that some people of Middle Eastern descent hold their breath whenever they find out that an act of violence has occurred on American soil, hoping that it’s not someone of their ethnicity. I even remember two years after the Virginia Tech shooting, there was another act of violence in Binghamton, NY where an Asian man went postal at an immigration office and killed 13 others. There was a short-lived time when race relations between Asian-Americans and other Americans suffered, but luckily, there weren’t any real residual effects. However, Muslims and Arab-Americans have not been so lucky.

As insensitive as it may seem to state this, the fact that the Newtown shooter was a white, American male (and not anyone with a foreign sounding name or skin complexion) is a lot better for our national discourse. The media can focus on the two biggest issues at hand that they usually throw to the wayside for sensationalist, xenophobic fear mongering. Gun control and mental illness are the major topics of discussion, rather than the race or nationality of the shooter.

There are many more reasons why the Newtown shooting can and should be one of the biggest stories of the year and also a media case study for years to come. I’m sure once the gun debate actually happens on a national stage, it will become clearer how these factors helped shape the narrative. And hopefully for the better.

Note: This post is written with all due respect to the victims and their families, and was written with all available information as of the afternoon of December 14, 2012. They say you shouldn’t post things online when you’re angry or drunk. Well, one out of two isn’t bad.

On Friday, amidst the nation’s shock and dismay at the mass murder of 18 schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut, CNN reported that Ryan Lanza was the shooter’s name and actually posted a link to his Facebook profile.

The logic behind arming the unwitting and fuming masses with a digital pitchfork aside, CNN got it wrong. It was widely known that the shooter was dead at the conclusion of the murders, and soon there were screenshots circulating online of the very same Ryan Lanza posting on his Facebook that he was still indeed alive, on a bus, and was involved in a case of mistaken identity by CNN. Meanwhile, his Facebook profile picture was shared over 5,000 times by people posting messages about what a monster he was. And if I know the internet, I’m sure he and his Facebook friends got their share of online abuse.

Screenshot of Ryan Lanza’s Facebook as reported by Slate

To their credit, Slate also mistakenly reported that Ryan was the shooter, but they later recanted their Tweet and posted the screenshot above. It’s hard to unring a bell, though.

Among other choice words, Ryan wrote “F-ck you CNN…”. It’s hard to argue with that sentiment. Consider this: this young man Ryan (who lived in NJ at the time) heard about a shooting in his hometown, where his mother was killed. At some point, he was handcuffed by the police and interrogated knowing only parts of the story (learning that his brother was the perpetrator and also likely murdered their father). On top of that, his face is posted all over the internet and he’s labeled as a child murderer. All of this because CNN jumped to conclusions and speculated as to the identity of the shooter.

It’s no secret that the 24-hour news cycle is a detriment to quality reporting. To use CNN as a top example, their heavy use of social media and crowdsourced reporting (e.g. iReport) as “sources” is reaching ludicrous levels. Who takes responsibility when a Twitter source is wrong? Clearly, not CNN. There are repercussions to sloppy news reporting.

They say that history is written by the winners, and also that news is the first draft of history. If that’s the case, then CNN is making themselves out to be a big loser. Take responsibility for your editorial decisions, and rebuild your reputation. Otherwise, stop calling yourself a news organization.

For the Advertising/Marketing Class of 2013, I present you everything I’ve learned about this industry.

1) Get out now. Don’t go into advertising or marketing. People will hate you. Your parents will think you’re doing the devil’s work. You’ll never be able to adequately describe what you do when you meet strangers outside the industry and feel good about yourself afterwards. GET. OUT. NOW. Okay, that should get rid of all the uncertain people. If you want to make it in this industry, you have to commit. There are so many places where you could take a wrong turn (which can sometimes be a good turn), so you have to know what you want to do, and then set a path to do it. But be flexible. I can count on one hand the number of people I know who got their dream jobs right out of college.

2) You will not be paid as much as you think you’re worth, and you are not above internships. Most gainfully employed people that I know started out at internships. A lot of them aren’t ideal, but they’re not meant to be. You have to remember the ultimate purpose of internships for most companies – they’re either for building talent internally through pre-entry level hires, or they just want cheap labor that can be easily replaced. Most of the time, it’s the latter. That doesn’t mean you should half-ass your job. Learn everything you can, and at some point, you’ll probably outgrow your job responsibilities. Use it to build your resume, and then you can leverage your experience for a full time position (either there or elsewhere).

3) If you’re planning on moving back home and home isn’t a big city, you’ll be at a huge disadvantage. Like it or not, agencies gravitate toward metropolitan areas. There’s more talent, bigger clients, and the mystique of saying your office is in Manhattan. My parents had the foresight to move to Brooklyn and stay here throughout my entire life. It has definitely opened a lot of doors in terms of networking and being privy to the multitude of jobs available. I really don’t have a solution to this if you’re from the middle of nowhere and don’t have the means to get yourself to a big city. I guess it boils down to nurture over nature.

4) For the creatives – a good portfolio is a lot better than a good resume. What good is all the fancy book learnin’ if you can’t execute? When I was studying graphic design, I ran into a lot of people who definitely had “it”. Great eye for composition, creative ways of remixing existing concepts and themes, etc. But a lot of people also didn’t have the chops in school or even straight out of graduation. And that’s okay too; those people go to ad school.

5) Corollary to Tip #4: Sometimes you have to face facts and realize you suck. You might not have an eye for design or you might never be able to write riveting ad copy. If it’s just not in your nature, then no amount of schooling will help. Willingness to learn is huge, but it’s more important to accept critical feedback when it’s valid. Learning to identify the truly useful feedback is the hard part; I’m still working on that one.

6) Volunteer for anything you can. There’s always extra work to do, and raising your hand shows that you’re engaged and want to grow professionally. It may take more of your time, but if it works out, it’ll pay dividends. You never know when there might be a position you’re qualified for opening up somewhere down the line. It might be one that you’d never find out about unless your supervisor realized what ancillary skills you possess.

credit: JMaz Photo

7) Highlight your strengths. If you honestly think you have something to add to the conversation, speak up (given an appropriate situation). But don’t speak just to be heard. If people like what they hear, they’ll learn your name or ask about you in due time. Be visible, but not in an annoying, peer-antagonizing way.

8) As familiar as you are with your strengths, become more intimate with your weaknesses. Don’t rest on your laurels. Go in every day looking to improve. Set weekly or monthly goals. Presentation skills need some work? Seize as many opportunities as you can to practice and get feedback from your superiors who have been doing it for much longer. Lacking some technical skills? Ask if you can shadow one of your more experienced colleagues. If you can do it without inconveniencing them, you’ll not only learn something, but he or she might actually be honored that you asked.

9) Your college degree or GPA means a lot less than you think it does. Stop listing your GPA after you get your first real world job. If you don’t have to, don’t list what year you graduated (ageism is a litigable offense, after all). Let your experience speak for itself and try your best not to deal yourself any disadvantages. Your Ivy League undergraduate diploma will likely server its role as proof that you attained your basic education qualification. Sure, it may impress the HR people, but if that’s all you have, you’re not getting hired. Now, networking is a totally different thing. Take advantage of your alumni networks and see who your professors know in the industry. It will never hurt to know more people. And try your damnedest not to burn any bridges. The people you step over to get to the top will be the same ones you meet on your way back down.

10) For the love of all that is holy, keep your resume to one page or less. Nobody has time to read your fluffed up opus of an undergraduate CV.

11) Don’t forget to have fun your last year in college. But at some point, learn to stop procrastinating. Get all your job applications out of the way the end of Q1 2013.

12) Prepare your stomach for free lunches.

13) If you ever lose your passion for the industry, then get out. Otherwise, you’re just a cog in the machine and the longer you’re here, the more it’ll grind you down to your core. It’s not all Mad Men. 95% of the time, it’s as inglamorous as can be. It can get down and dirty and you may not see the benefits of the long term strategy until further down the road. If you’re unhappy, shop around before deciding whether or not you want to change career paths completely. But be warned, there will always be 150 qualified people gunning for your job the second you leave. And speaking of, don’t ever quit your job without another one lined up. Unemployment isn’t exclusive to the worst of us.

Take a look at the latest covers of TIME Magazine:

The different covers of the Feb 27, 2012 edition of TIME Magazine (click to enlarge)

This piqued my interest for several reasons. The first was obviously that “Lil’ Kim” is the most clever headline that anyone could have come up with for that cover story. Seriously, take note, ESPN. You can make a pun about an Asian person without resorting to “accidental” racial slurs.

But more importantly, one of the topics making its way around media circles is how TIME Magazine “dumbs down” covers for the US audience. It’s been inferred that their editors don’t believe Americans care about worldly issues like overseas uprisings or the European economy. Jon Stewart summed it up perfectly on this Daily Show segment:

So it’s very interesting to me that for the February 27 issue of TIME, it’s the Asian version that has a different cover from the rest. When I first saw the spread above, I thought for sure it was the US version that would have the LINSANITY! cover. After all, Jeremy Lin is one of the biggest stories and personalities of the year so far. My thought process then moved onto thinking that maybe TIME had done the ol’ American switcheroo one too many times and realized the error of their ways, so they left the Kim Jong Un cover on (with a very America-centric reference to hip hop artist Lil Kim).

But once you start peeling the layers of the onion even deeper, you realize that maybe there was some self-censorship at play in the Asian version. After all, any article about Kim Jong Un is bound to mention his late father in a less than desirable light. I’m not sure if they even get TIME Magazine in North Korea, but I’m sure their potential version of TIME (even if heavily edited) doesn’t include stories about bears mourning for the Dear Leader. And I would suppose that some governments would take offense to the American view of Asian diplomacy (or lack thereof).

Then I remembered something I had read online about how the Chinese media doesn’t know how to cover the Jeremy Lin story. Its citizens know who he is, but covering his background is a bit tricky due to the fact that he’s from Taiwan (whose independence the Chinese government doesn’t recognize) and because he openly talks about his Christian faith (which is a big no-no). So, clearly not the greatest cover story choice either. Was TIME Magazine just choosing what it believed to the lesser of two evils? The backlash from a Jeremy Lin story from the Chinese government would definitely be a lot less harsh than that of a potentially defamatory Kim Jong Un article in North Korea.

I wanted some expert opinions on the matter, so I Tweeted at NPR’s On The Media.  Their response was that TIME was probably trying to cater to the Asian audience who’s going Linsane at the moment. Am I just paranoid or did I just overlook Occam’s Razor? Because money as a motivator is typically the simplest explanation.

In either case, a good media study up for debate.

Note: This article is not about verifying identities in social media; that’s way too boring. This post is about the sense of validation that motivates people to use social media more and more.

The need to be validated is what drives modern society. It falls within the top two sections of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs (New Year’s Resolution: Stop relating every marketing concept to Maslow?). And this need translates over very nicely to social media and its users. The first word is the key one: social. Social networks are about interacting, but networking is also about creating new connections that did not previously exist. And therein lies the promise of social media for the everyday users- the ability to receive validation from another person, whether it’s the cute girl from Chemistry class Liking your status on Facebook, a customer service rep responding to your complaints on Yelp, a movie star responding to your Tweet/answering a question, striking up a casual conversation with the CEO of a tech startup you’re interested in working for. Whatever the case may be, the (potential) feedback loop is what drives many users to engage. I’m going to use this post to highlight a few social networks that are doing this right.

Why do people use Quora?

Quora markets itself as being THE place where anybody is able to receive expert answers to any question. In this sense, Quora mainly relies on the quality of responses to drive engagement. But sometimes this even lends itself to some surprises. Take the example below: in this thread, someone asked a general question about how JJ Abrams started his movie-making career… and JJ Abrams himself popped by to personally answer the question!

JJ Abrams was definitely the expert on the subject matter (click to enlarge)

Amazing that he would take the time out of his day to answer an anonymous person’s question just because he knew he would be the best source for an answer. It also shows that he cares for his fans and is willing to reward them for their fandom and devotion. Really awesome. No one can argue that that isn’t the single best answer for that question. (Full disclosure: I love Fringe!)

Why do people use Reddit?

In the same vein, Reddit has become the “it” social sharing site. It has completely eclipsed Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicio.us and all the others. It has done so by fostering a community where any and all questions can be asked and answered, with no apparent limits to genuine curiosity. And the community has grown so large (and full of educated students and professionals) that there’s almost always someone qualified to answer your questions, no matter how obscure (consider this thread about hair dryers.) The AskReddit threads are similar to Quora, but with a typically lower signal to noise ratio.

And occasionally on Reddit (actually at least a few times a month at this point), someone famous creates an account solely to answer Redditors’ questions. In recent memory, there’s been Louis CK, Jeopardy Champion Ken Jennings, Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Stephen T. Colbert, and countless others. During these days, a lucky few have their questions answered by someone they likely revere, or at least respect, for their body of work and also for allowing random Internet users to ask them almost anything. It’s a bi-directional relationship- the users that help build the community are rewarded with recognition from people who would otherwise likely never be able to interact with them. Now that’s powerful stuff.

Admittedly, sometimes not the most powerful stuff

Why do people use Twitter?

Twitter is arguably the most frictionless social media service there is. Anybody can create an account and there are no barriers to Tweeting something at anybody else, celebrities and other famous individuals included. I myself have had some fleeting conversations with music artists I adore, industry thought leaders, Google Webspam Team Overlord Matt Cutts, among others (#HumbleBrag). And that’s the kind of validation people are searching for when they first hear about Twitter, decide that it’s not too stupid, and then sign up and write their first Tweet directed at someone they don’t personally know. Twitter is the social media platform of aspiration.

You can even get a response to the most inane of requests, like having a RoboCop statue erected by the mayor of Detroit.

Self-explanatory

What does this all mean to brands and individuals active in the online or social media space? In short, technology has enabled more of us to communicate with each other and with strangers who had once only been available through very specific channels. Now that it’s socially acceptable to ask questions/make comments and expect answers/responses, doing so has become a routine part of our online lives. Whether you’re a musician on Facebook, a blogger with an active comments section, a customer service rep on Twitter, or whatever else, it will only work to your benefit to provide users with the best answers (barring any huge PR gaffes). You need some give and some take to complete the feedback loop.

I’ll admit that the title of this blog post is a bit sensationalist, but walk down this path with me and maybe it will be justified enough to make sense. Alternative names for this blog post? “How to Sell SEO to a Non-Believer” or “Wagering on SEO” or maybe even “SEO is next to Godliness”. Okay, not that last one.

The inspiration for this post is the argument proposed by the French philosopher/mathematician Blaise Pascal regarding the existence of God. His viewpoint, dubbed Pascal’s Wager, stated (without taking sides in the argument) that whether or not God exists, it benefits a person to live virtuously such that when that person dies, he or she will have done a life of good as a result of the potential existence of God, regardless of whether or not there’s a Heaven or anything afterwards. The possibility of being a good person and not going to Heaven are considerably outweighed by the consequences of being an immoral person your whole life and then finding out that God exists. The probability math comes out to roughly 3 out of 4 times, it’s better to live your life as if you believed in God.

I’m sure I’ve made some mistakes in interpreting Pascal’s Wager, but the general framework can be applied to many non-theistic topics, such as global warming. Take this comic for example:

This comic is a personal favorite regarding the global warming “debate”

This all relates back to SEO, I promise. Hopefully also with practical implications.

So let’s say you have to sell SEO to a client or business. You can invoke some form of Pascal’s Wager to do so, as unintuitive as it may seem. The best argument for why SEO is a useful service worth paying for isn’t in dollar signs, rankings, or clickthrough rate percentages. It’s in the alternative. How much does it cost for that company to not have optimized pages and to not rank well on the first page for relevant terms? That’s the gambit. Sure, there are checks and P&Ls involved, but at the end of the day, if you shell out X amount of dollars for good SEO, it’s worth it 75% of the time. And that’s an ROI any marketer can get behind.

This reminds me of a party I attended recently where a stranger asked what I did for a living. I replied with the generic “Internet marketing” to some awkward indifference. I then added, “you know, God’s work.” That at least got a chuckle. Little did he know I wasn’t entirely joking.

Just a short note about 2011: it was definitely one of my better years in recent memory. I switched from one good job to an even better one. I’m another year closer to being out of student debt (three more to go!). I’ve made considerable strides with my freelance work (including SEO and graphic design), as well as with my hobbies (like concert photography, guitar/banjo, Yelping, etc.).

So here’s to a fresh, new 2012. The world won’t end, and I hope everyone has a very fruitful year. I’m not making any resolutions that have a time limit, but I will say that “be a better person than the one you were yesterday” still rings true as my general life mantra.

Take care, and be safe!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! This blog post will be (somewhat) in the spirit of food!

It’s no secret that I love Yelp. I love utilizing crowdsourced reviews as a baseline filter for whether or not to visit/spend money somewhere. I love writing my own opinions and mingling with community members. And I love the community itself. The events they throw for Elite members are awesome, and they’re investments back into the system.

It’s such a simple formula. You’d think that a huge behemoth like Google would be able to replicate success with its own Google Places, right? Well, you’d be surprised. I think that Google Places will never have a chance to beat Yelp at their own game, given what they’ve been doing.

Now, this is not a rant against the Google NYC team. I love following them on Twitter and we’ve had some friendly (and not so friendly) exchanges. This is me pointing out the flaw of their incentive structure. Here’s an excerpt from a contest they’re running in conjunction with a recent event:

Google Places has a really, really bad incentive system (click to enlarge)

So what’s my issue with how Google Places is building its community? It’s mostly extrinsically motivated (see my blog post on Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation in Crowdsourcing). The more you review, the more likely it is that you win a prize? That works against Google in two ways – firstly, you won’t convince the truly passionate reviewers (the ones who do it to help others, or because they really love writing about local businesses) because you’re not concentrating on them; instead, you’re going for the low hanging fruit: the people who will say, “sure, I’ll write a review in exchange for a chance to win a Chromebook.” And like the pigeon pushing the lever with no pellets coming out, eventually those extrinsically motivated individuals will learn their lesson and give up, abandoning their Places account entirely. That’s now how you build a self-sustaining community.

Secondly, Google Places vs. Yelp will always be an us-versus-them scenario for the die-hards. People who have been following the Google vs. Yelp saga know that there’s bad blood between the two. To sum it all up:
1) Organic search reportedly supplies Yelp with a whopping 75% of its traffic.
2) When Google starting emphasizing their business pages in SERPs, they aggregated reviews from different sites including Yelp to provide their own “rating”. But they also overstepped their boundaries when Google took content directly from Yelp reviews and posted it on those pages, leaving users no reason to click through to Yelp.
3) Google was quiet on the local reviews front and then did a soft launch for Google Places in key cities.
4) Then, out of nowhere, Google bought Zagat.

If you follow the logical progression of things, it’s clear that Google wants to be a bigger player in the local space. Heck, just do a search for “dentist” and see how many results from your city show up. But Google is totally handling this the wrong way. Obviously, Zagat’s business model is in a totally different direction than Yelp’s, which makes me think Google might be taking the high-brow approach. But then again, crowdsourcing is the future of not only search, but of the internet as well (as I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts) so it would be very silly for Google not to make a play in that space. That’s where Google Places would ideally fill the gap. However, I just don’t think they have a sound strategy to build up its review and user base to rival that of Yelp, and they’re just taking too many shortcuts.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and if any other service can topple Yelp, it will take a lot of time and a much better plan than what Google’s employing.

I’d like to preface this blog post by saying that I’m usually the first to poke fun at SEOs who blog about the “search impact” of every little thing that Google does, whether it’s changing a font, repositioning items slightly in the SERP, or whatever the case may be. So in order for me to get riled up over something they do, it has to be huge. And this recent update to Google Analytics is nothing short of huge.

To quote this Google Blog Post:

Under the clearly cop-out guise of protecting user privacy, Google is going to start not reporting on organic keywords that logged-in users search. Isn’t that the whole selling point of Google Analytics? If not, it’s definitely a major one- the ability to see how users reach your site and how you can better position yourself in the space to garner more clickthroughs.

Visual Approximation of Google Engineers

I especially take issue with the last line I quoted above: Google says that this will only affect a minority of organic traffic. B-U-L-L. Think about it for a second. Who’s most likely to use SSL? Or to put it even more broadly, who’s most likely to be logged into their Google accounts when searching? First on the list are net savvy people who work in the cloud and rely on Google and Google Apps services (including companies who run on Apps). Think about the repercussions of a tech content site not being able to see how admins or webmasters are reaching their resources. You also have people on local networks who are most likely to use SSL- probably the majority of college students on a shared network. That is definitely a key demo. And maybe this one slipped past people’s radar, but in order to do anything with an Android phone, you need to be logged into your Google account! So every single Android user will have their keywords stripped as well. Is Google trying to make us hate their mobile OS and its users?

So what’s an SEO to do? Not much to do, really. We can storm Mountain View with our pitchforks, but Google is stubborn, especially when it comes to PR- and soundbyte-friendly topics such as “user privacy”. Let’s face it- Google’s plan is to have more people use their services and to be logged in indefinitely (take the ubiquitous “+You” bar, for example). Given enough time, Google will have everyone logged in whenever they search, and then they’ll also control all of that query data.

Talk about having your cake and eating it too.