SM Challenge; violence not condoned – not even any leather

Sharon Robins – Desperately scanning social media between 4:30 and 7pm – on a Sunday!

The most interesting thing that I found was a picture that might make a great ‘And Finally’ story.  And it hadn’t been there earlier that I’m aware of!

Batmobile in Cambodia - posted Digg 17:40

Yes, extraordinary how I found this picture when I was in fact looking for Cornwall, Cornish and focusing on Falmouth or Penryn. 

But that’s the interesting thing about social media and the influence on news – how easily the web provides related links that draw the crowd somewhere else.  

The news searcher/voyeur can be a news butterfly jumping where ever they want to go pulling whatever ‘news’ interests them.

Back to the challenge

http://www.kathijoonmyfamilyandothera.blogspot.com/  16:30 found blog from Twitter

Had a look to see if there was a hidden story in there somewhere but nothing particular.

16:35 Twitter “Bulldoza A little sore and hungry need ride to Falmouth ” 43 mins ago from myspace

Oops, Falmouth but not UK

Is there a Falmouth in the states? Still could be a story??  I twittered back to see if I could find what the story was but got no reply.  Quelle surprise. Who am I?

Facebook: Laura Tonkin: has had an excellent day and is now one step closer to achieving her aim of walking the entire coast of Cornwall!    Probably not a new story but maybe a new angle?  Possible prospect.

Facebook 18:23: Michel Maheu: last night was not a good night for me I hit a deer coming back from Cornwall    Poor deer.  And how annoying; Ontario.  But might have made a little story if not.

http://cornishzetetics.blogspot.com/2010/01/housing-plans-lib-dems-speak-with.html

17:50 blog search/google as above re housing in cornwall.  Not exactly new but a new angle.

http://itinerantwargamer.blogspot.com/2010/01/back-from-falmouth.html

18:00 blog search/google   Story about grown men and a week hol to play war games (21 hours ago though).  Def could do an article on this behaviour that is probably not common knowledge.

Throughout the time , I also checked Flickr and Technorati but found nothing of interest (to me).

Conclusion

Too small a search area and time span to be of significance – unless during that time there had been a major disaster, which thankfully there was not.

January action plan

So we’ve all come back after christmas laden down with research aplenty, and on top of this, Sharon has done and dusted three killer interviews for us with top social media gurus.

After our meeting today, we have a plan and we’re really going to get the ball rolling from here on in.

• We have all done some academic research and looked at studies on the impact of social media upon journalism. In order to fully communicate this in the group, everyone is now going to post a review of their findings. After the post, remember to Tweet it as well and link out to the research if possible, to keep the multi in our media.
• See if we can change the colours of our blog so our style is more similar to that of the major social media sites. Bright, friendly, and playful. We feel that a grey background is a bit too sombre for our subject.
• We’ve set a date for our gather-a-thon. On Sunday 31 January, we are going to film our news challenge. This will involve us sitting for two hour shifts across a ten hour period by a computer, seeing if we can find “newsworthy” stories through social media alone. Then we will how quickly (and indeed – if at all) these stories appear on the corporate news websites and radio broadcasts.
• Jason is going to interview BBC Cornwall’s Tim Hubbard, and Lydia is going to join Sharon in the cat-and-mouse campaign to pin down Ruth Barnett for an interview.

So, let’s get into gear and get those research findings rolling around the blogosphere. Then, once we’ve pooled our data, we can pepper it with our interviews and comment to really hit the ground running with the presentation.

By the way, feel free to edit the appalling cliches out of my posts. I have a feeling they may be everything that innovative social technologies stand against.