Archive - 2010

September 15th

Wordless Wednesday



Clouds of Earl, originally uploaded by Aldon.

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About Orient Lodge

Orient Lodge is an eclectic news site focusing on Politics, Technology, Media, Social Networks, Marketing, The Arts, Connecticut News as well as stories missed by more traditional outlets.

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#digiday - Gamifying The News

One of the most interesting comments from Digiday Social conference in New York City on Tuesday was that more people play social games, like Farmville, than read the newspaper. I haven't found a source to back up this comment or to get details about exactly who they are counting, or how, but on the surface, it is frightening. More people seem more concerned about acquiring fictitious grapes from a fictitious farm stand than about acquiring information that is necessary for our democracy to thrive. Perhaps the politician seeking to get elected would do better seeking ad placements in social games than they would be in participating in debates.

Yet perhaps there is a glimmer of hope from the Digiday Mobile conference for the future of journalism coming in the form of a neologism. The emerging buzzword of the conference was "Gamification". A San Francisco startup calledGamify defines the verb gamify, as "Applying game mechanics to bring fun and engagement where needed." Perhaps it is sorely needed to bring fun and engagement back to the news industry.

A few years ago, I participated in some "Play The News" games where participants would read up on a news story and make predictions about how it would turn out. As an example, people might read up on the primaries that happened last night, and make predictions about the outcomes. Will Christine O'Donnell and Karl Rove make nice? Will she win the general election? People who follow the news would be expected to perform better in this game. With game mechanics in place to track who is doing the best, people will feel encouraged to participate.

Unfortunately, this was a couple years ago, before social gaming really took off and I don't know whatever happened to the game. Another site that I've always been interested in is NewsTrust. This site crowdsources efforts to find quality journalism. They base their results not on gaming the news the way people do at Digg or Reddit, but on aspects of whether the story has multiple sources, anonymous sources, uses purple language, only presents one side of the story, and other means of judging the quality of a news story. You could review reviewers as well and see how well each reviewer was doing. They are on their way to gamification.

Of course, NPR listeners are likely to think of Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!, the NPR news quiz show. They have done a great job of gamification of the news. However, a social media game for listeners to play along at home could take this to a whole new level.

So, it may be frightening that more people play social games than read newspapers. On the other hand, it might be a great opportunity to encourage greater understanding of what is going on around us and greater civic engagement by gamifying the news.

September 14th

#Digiday Social and Gestalt Blogging

What am I doing, sitting on a 6:56 AM train to New York City writing a blog post on my cellphone? That is what I asl myself as the fine fall morning slips quickly by my train window, punctuated by red spikes of sumack.

Yesterday was a frustrating day. The spam filter on my server failed bringing everything to a crawl. I had hoped to go into the city yesterday as well, but between feeling rundown, having server problems, having some family logistical issues, and dealing with the foster puppies, that just didn't happen.

I am way behind on my emails and hoped that at least I could catch up on them a little. No luck. I did get a chance to respond to a couple PR requests and pursue a job lead a little bit. I took some time to research some articles. I watched a mailing list struggle as members left because other members wouldn't stay on task. All of this is good blog fodder, but it leaves me further behind.

So what does all of this have to do with #digiday social and gestalt blogging and why have I taken so long to get to my point? Don't I remember the rule about not buring my lede?

One of the emails I responded to yesterday was from a communications director who questioned if I deserved press credentials from her organization. While most organizations are all too eager to grant me press credentials, I still run into this from time to time and it still bugs me.

I can understand some of it. I write in my own style, often using the first person and often avoiding the conventions of the AP style guide. At the same time, I shun some of the conventional wisdom about blogging. I do not limit myself to a single niche.

This finally gets me to my point. One niche I like to write about is digital advertising and marketting, not something political bloggers often write about, although I think they should. When you get to social marketting, it becomes all the more complicated.

While some people try to segment their online lives; Facebook for family and friends, LinkedIn for business contacts and Twitter and other sites for random noise, our real lives are notso neat. We see co-workers at church. We run into former classmates at PTO meetings. We try to integrate our lives as much as possible..

The brand that is launching a social campaign would be well advised to pay attention to this, especially if they are seeking that digital holy grail of marketing, viralness.

A campaign goes viral when people take it across the artificial boundaries of our lives. It happens when someone shares a link at work on Facebook with their friends after hearing about it at the water cooler.

Will the folks at digiday social get this and talk about it? Hard to tell. Will the communications directors for various organizations get? We'll see. What about the political operatives? Let us hope so.

The train continues rolling towards New York City. The sumac is being replaced by graffiti. Perhaps that, also, is a metaphor about what is happening in social marketting, but that's a different post.

September 13th

Music Monday - David Silva

What I like best about David Silva is that he is a story teller. His song, Guitar's And Shady Ladies starts off

I wrote a song while watching a movie starring Marilyn Monroe
I wrote a poem with my feet in a river that flowed into Mexico
I wrote a tune once on an airplane, but I've forgotten how it goes
And there's a song in that bottle of whisky
And I'm going to find it if it takes all night

Well, it seems like he's spent many a night with that bottle of whisky, since he's found many great songs. Whether it be a song about an old girl friend that put garlic in her peanut butter or a song from the view of a battered wife,

Dinner's almost ready, I got your love songs playing too
I got the flowers that you sent, that was a loving thing to do
The pictures are all straightened; clean sheets are on the bed
As I close my eyes and think about the better times ahead
In just a couple minutes you'll be coming through the door
And it will all be perfect baby, please don't hit me any more

Yet in all of these songs of hard lives, there remains hope. His song Blessings captures it nicely:

Everybody on this world has had a hard life
A life that they begin and end alone
Everybody needs a friend, every now and then
Everybody has more blessings than they know

So David Silva continues singing his songs. His album Moorpark Oasis gets some airtime every now and then on WCNI and WWUH here in Connecticut. You can see his song September Bride on Youtube:

Returning back to his song Guitar's And Shady Ladies, he has this section:

And now I'm almost 51 and I don't know what I want to be when I grow up
If I grow up
I'm not growing up
I'm singing this song for 26 years and still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

Well, I'm 51 now and some would question if I ever grew up or what I'll be if I do grow up. One thing is clear, I'll be a fan of David Silva. He writes some good music about good people in hard lives. We need to hear more voices like his.

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