Am I an Influencer?

Okay so I'm slightly behind when it comes to these readings... I guess that's what Sunday for though, right? Over the past couple of days I began reading and catching up on The New Influencers by Paul Gillin. I agree with a lot that he has to say, and a few things I completely disagree with. Well, I guess, rather, the things I disagree with are things that he hasn't actually said, he just quoted them.

Let's start with what I don't like, or maybe who I don't like. This Dan Gillmor guy. Gillmor is apparently a leading proponent of "citizen journalism". Gillin says that Gillmor said (yeah this is a total case of he-said-she-said) that he has made it a mission to advocate standards of quality and accuracy in social media to rival commercial news outlets.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't what makes this whole social media/blogging stuff so fun? I can be a "blogger" but I don't have to write a professional journal article that would be good enough to publish in The New York Times. Gillin says later in this chapter that it's widely acceptable for me as a blogger for me to post questionable news and other stories and then if I'm wrong... correct them later. So tell me Mr. Gillmor, why do we need standards? That's what those commercial outlets are here for... standards. If you make standards out of my personal blogging, we're going to come up with something called... well I don't know. But we'll have to come up with some other "sphere" for informal news.

Now, let's talk about what I do like. I do like Gillin's Five Commandments. From the blogs that I've read as an end-user all of these things are true:

Links. I love links. As a user, I don't want to just read your blog. I want you to deliver the information to me, but then see something to go along with it. Usually something funny. A video, a picture, etc.

Dissing. Eh. I agree and disagree with this one. I think everyone is entitled to their own views and opinions, so why do you need to diss them? But if I said I didn't agree with people dissing other people... then you wouldn't be allowed to have their own opinion. It's an endless circle.

Transparency. I can't agree more. If you make a mistake, like I mentioned earlier, just fix it. I don't think there needs to be a set of standards though.

Commenting. How important is this? Well... until I started taking this class I guess I didn't realize just how important commenting is. Now that i think about it though, I want feedback, so why not leave feedback for others. Especially if it's worthwhile comment. Like. Don't leave me something that says, "Yeah, I agree.". Pick apart what I just told you and throw it back at my face. I want to know what you think. Good or bad.

Blathering. Clearly, not the case for this post. But I agree. Most blogs that I've seen or read often have very short posts. They limit their information to one topic or thought, tell me about it, and I'll see more of it later.

Overall, I really like this book so far. And it is a much easier read compared to Engaged. I appreciate the short stories and anecdotes to straight content and facts. Well, if you're still with me, thanks for reading. More tomorrow on something social media/pr related. We're talking ... well... I don't know yet.